An assembly of rabbis sang 'We Shall Overcome' in Hebrew for MLK
Dr. Clarence Jones · A Conversation with MLK's Lawyer & Speechwriter: Dr. Clarence Jones · Joe Lonsdale · May 10, 2024 · at 33:08
Dr. Clarence Jones, attorney and speechwriter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., recounts an event illustrating the historic alliance between the Black civil rights movement and Jewish community leaders.
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“Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, conservative rabbinical scholar from Poland, they were invited to come to the Catskills. It was Rabbi Heschel's 65th birthday. He's a conservative rabbi. So they go to the Catskill Mountains, and they go into this assembly hall, and locked arms and arm around this huge hall, there are these rabbis. And as Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King walk to the middle of the room, since it's just celebrating Rabbi Heschel's birthday, right? Yeah. They began to sing in Hebrew, we shall overcome. The anthem for the civil rights movement. Dr. King tells me the two of them stood in the middle of the room and wept.”
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