During thecivil rights movement (1954–1968),American Jews andAfrican Americans formed strategic alliances to challenge racial inequality and injustice across the country. This built on earlier solidarity between the two communities, which had resulted in, among other things,Jewish activists taking many of the leadership positions within the earlyNAACP.[1][2]Jewish individuals and organizations provided financial support, legal expertise, and grassroots activism to support the growing movement nationwide.[1][2] Prominent Jewish organizations involved in this "Grand Alliance" included theAnti-Defamation League and theAmerican Jewish Congress.[3] Prominent Jewish leaders such asRabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel andJack Greenberg marched alongside figures likeMartin Luther King Jr. and contributed significantly to landmark legal victories.[4]
While this period is sometimes remembered as a "golden age" ofAfrican American–Jewish relations, modern scholars point out that there were still disagreements and tensions between Black people and Jews at the time.[5] The reasons for collaborating were also diverse, and often motivated by politics as much as moral, ethical and religious concerns.[5][6][7] Since the 1960s, despite disagreements on issues such asaffirmative action inhigher education, both Black and Jewish communities and community leaders have collaborated on general and specific campaigns to tackle discrimination.[8][9]
From the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, thecivil-rights movement organized to obtain legalizedracial equality andjustice in the United States. Rooted in the aftermath ofslavery andsegregation, the movement sought to highlight, discuss, and dismantle legalized discrimination based on race by, amongst other things, studying and applying the words of theSermon on the Mount, the documents of America'sFounding Fathers, and the words and techniques ofMohandas Gandhi.[10][11]
Led by prominent figures likeMartin Luther King Jr. andJames Bevel, activists employednonviolence,civil disobedience,protests, andlegal challenges to peacefully address legalized racial inequality. Landmark events, such as theMontgomery bus boycott, theBirmingham children's crusade, theMarch on Washington, theSelma to Montgomery marches; and the passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964,Voting Rights Act of 1965, andFair Housing Act of 1968, marked significant milestones in ending legalized segregation, antisemitism, and institutionalized racism. The Civil Rights Movement laid the groundwork for subsequentsocial justice movements, shaping the national dialogue on equality, civil liberties, and the ongoing pursuit of a more just and inclusive society.[12]
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Several major Jewish organizations, and many Jewish individuals, openly supported and worked with thecivil rights movement and the organizations which preceded it.[2][13] In 1909, Jewish activists such asJulius Rosenthal,Lillian Wald, RabbiEmil G. Hirsch, Stephen Wise, andHenry Moskowitz were among those who formed theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),[13] along with African-American activists such asW. E. B. Du Bois,Ida B. Wells-Barnett, andMary Church Terrell.[14] Collaboration continued in 1912 whenJulius Rosenwald andBooker T. Washington worked together to improveSouthern black education. These early partnerships laid the groundwork for future alliances between black and Jewish communities, such as the bipartisanCongressional Caucus on Black–Jewish Relations.[13][9]
In the 1960s, among attorneys serving the civil rights movement in the South, 50% were Jews. Jews also accounted for more than 50% of theWhite people who challenged theJim Crow laws inMississippi.[3][13] Many Jews, perceiving a shared history of persecution, identified with the struggles of African Americans and were motivated by a commitment to social justice. Many African Americans similarly identified with the struggles of the Jews in the Bible. Within organizations like the NAACP, Jewish leaders such asJoel Elias Spingarn and his brotherArthur B. Spingarn were instrumental in shaping legal strategies and advocating for equal rights.[15] TheAnti-Defamation League (ADL) expanded its mission beyond combatingantisemitism to address all forms of discrimination.[16] Among theAmerican Jewish Congress, leaders like RabbiJoachim Prinz actively participated in key civil rights events, including the historicMarch on Washington in 1963.[17]
On an individual level, figures likeRabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongsideMartin Luther King Jr.; both individuals emphasized the commonalities between their struggles.[3][18] In the late 1950s, racist attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions were also increasing, including two notable attacks in 1958: onThe Temple Reform synagogue in Atlanta, Georgia and theTemple Beth El Conservative synagogue in Birmingham, Alabama. This spurred many Jews to join the civil rights movement to oppose racism and segregation.[3] During theFreedom Summer, the deaths of Jewish activistsMichael Schwerner andAndrew Goodman, alongside Black activistJames Chaney, resulted in many more American Jews joining the movement.[17]
Major waves of Jewish immigration to the United States commenced in the 19th century, with the first notable wave featuringGerman-speaking Jews seeking economic opportunities and religious freedoms.[19] In the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century, a large number ofEastern European Jews arrived in America to flee persecution and economic hardships.[19] These immigrants, primarilyAshkenazi Jews, settled in urban areas such as New York City, often forming communities near Black neighborhoods.[20][21][22] Black communities also formed in Jewish neighborhoods due to cheaper rent and less antagonism toward the black population.[23] Having facedantisemitism and now encountering Black people in their daily life, many Jews recognized and empathized with the struggles of African Americans.[24][25][26][27] Jews during this period faced social antisemitism, which included barriers to Jews in higher education, and exclusion from administrative mechanisms, hotels and more.[28]
In the early 20th century, Jewish immigrants, particularly those from Eastern Europe, faced harsh working conditions in industries such as garment manufacturing. This led to Jewish participation inlabor movements, advocating for fair wages and improved working conditions. TheTriangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, which claimed the lives of predominantly Jewish and Italian immigrant garment workers, galvanized the Jewish community's involvement in workers' rights. Jewish labor activists such asClara Lemlich andRose Schneiderman organized labor strikes and pushed for legislative reforms.[29]
During theProgressive Era, Jewish reformers likeLillian Wald andJane Addams were instrumental in establishingsettlement houses andsocial welfare organizations aimed at addressing the socio-economic challenges faced by immigrants in urban centers. Jews were also actively involved in thewomen's suffrage movement, with figures likeRose Schneiderman advocating forwomen's rights and suffrage alongside their broader commitment to social justice causes.[30] This early 20th-century Jewish community activism paved the way for broader Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement.[31][26]
TheNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909 in response to the widespread racial violence and discrimination against African Americans. At its inception, the NAACP aimed to dismantle institutionalized racism and secure civil rights for African Americans through legal means. Jewish individuals played a role in the formation and early leadership of the NAACP.Joel Elias Spingarn — a prominent Jewish scholar, educator, and civil rights advocate — served as the organization's chairman from 1913 to 1919,[32] where he shaped the organization's strategies and contributed to its future growth, according to the NAACP.[14][33] His brother,Arthur B. Spingarn, chaired the organization for two decades from 1919.[34] The Spingarn brothers actively contributed to legal initiatives within the NAACP: Arthur worked pro bono as head of the NAACP's legal committee[35] and Joel was instrumental in advancing key NAACP legal efforts, such as its focus on anti-lynching legislation and educational equality.[36]
Jewish lawyers within the NAACP, such asCharles Houston (often referred to as the "man who killed Jim Crow")[37] andJack Greenberg (who succeededThurgood Marshall as the head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund) played critical roles in landmark cases likeBrown v. Board of Education, which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.[38]Herbert Hill was the NAACP labor secretary from 1951 to 1977. He played a significant role in advancing the cause of economic justice and equality for African American workers.[39]
TheAnti-Defamation League's involvement in thecivil rights movement included partnerships, legal interventions, opposition to hate groups, and educational initiatives.[40][41][42] Established in 1913, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) originally focused on combattingantisemitism and defending the rights of Jews in the United States.[43] As its mission evolved, the ADL expanded its commitment to fighting all forms of discrimination. During the Civil Rights Movement, the ADL supportedAfrican American leaders and organizations, includingDr. Martin Luther King Jr. It initiated educational initiatives aimed at promoting tolerance and cooperation as a way to end racism.[40][41][42]
The ADL also offered financial and legal support to the civil rights movement. In a landmark move, the ADL filed anamicus curiae brief in the historic case ofBrown v. Board of Education (1954).[44] This was pivotal in endingracial segregation in public schools.[45] The ADL also actively opposed segregationist organizations like theKu Klux Klan, monitoring and exposing hate groups that promoted discrimination and violence against African Americans.[46][42][47]
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Founded in 1918, theAmerican Jewish Congress (AJC) was committed to promoting social justice and equality, and actively engaged in various civil rights initiatives.[18]Stanley Levinson, a close friend and advisor toMartin Luther King Jr., served on the Manhattan board of the AJC. The two men met when Levinson began fundraising for theMontgomery bus boycott in 1956.[48]
In January 1957, King Jr. reached out to the AJC's then-president,Israel Goldstein, looking to broaden support for theSouthern Negro Leaders Conference. In response, Goldstein publicly condemned the bombing of Black churches and parsonages that same month.[18] In 1958, King Jr. was invited by Levinson to speak to the AJC's Miami conference — one of the few anti-segregationist organizations to convene in the South — and highlighted the shared impact of racism and segregation upon Blacks and Jews alike.[3]
RabbiJoachim Prinz, who served as the AJC's president after Goldstein (1958–1966), emphasized the shared commitment to justice among diverse communities — most notably in his speech at the historicMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, delivered just before King's iconic "I Have a Dream" address.[49][50][18]
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, born in 1907 inPoland, was a prominent Jewish theologian and philosopher. Fleeing theNazis, Heschel immigrated to the United States in 1940, where he became a noted Jewish scholar. He emphasized the spiritual and ethical dimensions of Judaism, advocating for social justice and interfaith understanding. In the 1960s, Rabbi Heschel marched alongside his friendDr. Martin Luther King Jr. at key events in the civil rights movement such as theSelma to Montgomery march.[51] Heschel emphasized the moral and spiritual duty to confront injustice, once saying, "I felt my legs were praying" during the marches.[52][53]
Michael Schwerner andAndrew Goodman were Jewish civil rights activists who were murdered, along with Black activistJames Chaney, during theFreedom Summer campaign inMississippi in 1964. The three young men were involved in efforts to register African American voters in the segregated South.
On June 21, 1964, the trio were investigating the burning of a Black church when they were arrested by local law enforcement. Later that evening, they were released but were ambushed by members of theKu Klux Klan. The activists were brutally beaten and murdered, their bodies buried in an earthen dam.[54]
The deaths of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney shocked the nation, and intensified the urgency of the Civil Rights Movement.[55] Outrage over the murders contributed to increased national attention on the struggles in the South and support for theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and theVoting Rights Act of 1965 — both aimed at dismantling segregation and ensuring the right to vote for African Americans.[54][56] In 1967, seven men, including Klan leaderEdgar Ray Killen, were convicted. Despite the convictions, it took decades for everyone responsible to face justice.[54]
Jack Greenberg was a distinguished American attorney and civil rights champion known for his leadership at theNAACPLegal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) from 1961 to 1984. SucceedingThurgood Marshall,[57][38] Greenberg's tenure marked a continuation of the LDF's commitment to strategic litigation for social change. Greenberg contributed to several landmark cases, including the successful defense of James Meredith's right to attend theUniversity of Mississippi in 1962,[57][38] andAlexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969), which compelled the immediate desegregation of public schools.[57][38][58]
Rabbi Joachim Prinz, drawing from his experiences inGermany during Hitler's regime, empathized with theAfrican-American struggle in the United States. During an exploratory visit in 1937 and upon his return to Germany, Prinz expressed his solidarity with African-Americans, emphasizing parallels between their plight and that ofGerman Jews. Settling inNewark, a city with a significant minority community, Prinz spoke against discrimination from his pulpit, participated in protests across the U.S., and advocated against racial prejudice in various aspects of life.[59][60] At the 1960AJC Convention, he said:
[As Jews], we work for freedom and equality. This is the heart of what we call the civil rights program....These are not mere words. These are the ideas which...have come to mean so much from the days when the author of third book of Moses coined that great sentence about liberty which is engraved upon theLiberty Bell in Philadelphia.[61]
As president of theAmerican Jewish Congress (AJC), Prinz sought to position the organization prominently in the civil rights movement. He met withMartin Luther King Jr. in 1958, requesting support for a conference on integration at theWhite House. Speaking at the March on Washington in 1963, Prinz stressed the importance of speaking out against discrimination based on his experiences in Nazi Germany. His address preceded Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In it, he stated: "the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence." Prinz remained involved in civil rights afterwards, and attended King's funeral in 1968 after his assassination.[61][60]
Historically, the Civil Rights Era-collaboration betweenAfrican American and Jewish leaders has been portrayed as a significant and positive development, marking a critical alliance againstracial segregation anddiscrimination in the United States.[62][63][64] This "Grand Alliance"[65] is sometimes portrayed as a "golden age" of cooperation.[66][7] The achievements of this partnership include legislative victories like theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and theVoting Rights Act of 1965, which helped dismantle legal barriers to equality.[24][67][68]
Despite the successes of the Civil Rights Era, however, tensions and challenges between the two communities still existed.[69] Political activist and philosopherCornel West has argued that even during the Civil Rights Era there was not a time "free of tension and friction" between the two communities. In 2001, he argued that Black people tended to downplay the collaboration, while Jews tended to romanticize it as a "golden age".[5]
Jeff Melnick, professor of American studies atUMass Boston, has argued that "the Black–Jewish alliance" is mostly a myth and that it sometimes leads to the assumption that African Americans "owe a debt for Jewish advocacy."[7] Hannah Labovitz argued against the romanticization of the era, claiming it was not "a story about white Jews intervening to save the day after experiencing their own challenges, but rather one damaged community doing what it could to help another."[6]
HistorianMelanie Kaye/Kantrowitz argued that only a few hundred non-Southern Jews took part in activism in the South, that both sides often failed to understand each other's point of view, and that the relationship was "frequently out of touch".[70] Political scientistAndrew Hacker pointed to a disparity between Blacks' and Jews' perceptions of events, highlighting the differences in tone and focus between the two communities.[71]Julius Lester, an African American convert to Judaism, argued that some African Americans may have rejected the perceived paternalism of some Jews within the civil rights movement, which Hacker labelled a form of "benevolent racism".[71]
As the Civil Rights Movement progressed, differences in approach, priorities, and perspectives arose between African American and Jewish leaders. Some tensions were rooted in varying historical and cultural contexts, as well as differences in socio-economic status. As the 1960s unfolded, political and ideological shifts contributed to strains in the relationship, such as the rise of theBlack power movement, increasing pro-Palestinian solidarity among African Americans, increasing support among American Jews for Israel after theSix-Day war, andIsraeli support for South Africa during apartheid.[64][65]
As Black people continued to face widespread discrimination and struggled to make progress in society, many Black activists became increasingly outspoken about issues such asaffirmative action[72] that Jews often opposed because of their similarity toquotas.[8] Many Jews preferredmeritocracy,[8] which Black activists often distrusted, feeling it hadhistorically been used to exclude them.[73][72]
Many liberal Jews also began tomove out of areas with increasing Black populations.[7] Cheryl Greenberg attributes this to the perceived "deterioration of their schools and neighborhoods" and fears of violence due to civil rights protests.[74] Some Jewish leaders also faced criticism from within their own communities for their perceived alignment with movements critical of Israel.[75] Meanwhile, some Black leaders felt that Jewish support for the civil rights movement was paternalistic or condescending,[71] or that Jewish racism was taken less seriously than Black antisemitism.[7]
Despite the challenges and tensions faced between Black activists and their Jewish allies during thecivil rights movement, however, collaborations continued between both communities. In 1982, RepresentativeJohn Lewis, a civil rights icon, joined forces with concerned citizens from Atlanta's Black and Jewish communities to campaign for the renewal of theVoting Rights Act.[9] Lewis marched alongside Jewish community members and co-established theAtlanta Black-Jewish Coalition, emphasizing open dialogue and partnership. Throughout his career, Lewis consistently spoke out againstantisemitism, advocated for Israel, and supported theSoviet Jewry movement in the 1970s and 1980s.[9] His longstanding relationship withAJC included receiving various honors, and he served as a founding co-chair for the Congressional Caucus onBlack–Jewish Relations.[9]
More recently, groups such as Rekindle, the Black/Jewish Justice Alliance, the Black Jewish Entertainment Alliance, and the Black and Jewish Leaders of Tomorrow have aimed to establish new cooperations between Black and Jewish Americans. In 2020, Georgia SenatorsRaphael Warnock (who preached at the same church asMartin Luther King, Jr.) andJon Ossoff both won their seats through a political alliance seen as a continuation of the "Grand Alliance". They were the first Black and first Jewish Senators in the state, respectively.[65]
In 2024, theJewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Culture Changing Christians announced a new partnership called New Golden Age. The collaboration aims to strengthen links between the Black and Jewish communities, combat hate, and strengthen the local social security net.[66]
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