These Vintage Photos Of Jewish-Black Unity Prove The Power Of Interfaith Activism

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"The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence."



Baptist Church priest Martin Luther King Jr. marched with leaders including Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, second from right, in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. (ASSOCIATED PRESS

01/16/2016 04:13 pm ET

Carol Kuruvilla
Religion Associate Editor, The Huffington Post

On August 28, 1963, a few minutes before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the most important speeches in American history, a white man in a crisp suit took to the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Looking out over the National Mall, Rabbi Joachim Prinz told the quarter of a million people gathered there that he came to them "as an American Jew."

He then spoke about his past as a rabbi in the German capital Berlin under the regime of Adolf Hitler.

I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence ... America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/these-vintage-photos-of-jewish-black-unity-show-how-powerful-interfaith-activism-can-be_us_5698131ee4b0778f46f8c175?ir=Religion§ion=religion