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Great show, Emily! Thank you for you're excellent interviews.

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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I was only six years old but I remember the phone ringing and my dad's hesitant voice as he spoke. Dr. King was on the other end of the phone asking for my father to come down to Selma to help prevent the anticipated violence. My dad being small in stature was telling his friend Martin that he did not think his presence would make any difference and after all, he had a family and a congregation up in New York that he had to take care of. "But Murray,” argued Martin, "I need you down here. There's going to be trouble and I know you can help soothe these folks.”

Reluctantly, my father got off the phone and called the president of the board of the congregation. Dr. King was requesting that he come down to Selma for the March on Sunday. "Murray, you get to the airport, your ticket will be waiting,” the president ordered.

On March 7th, 1965 my father, a first generation American Jew, got in the back of the line to march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama to secure the right for all Americans to have right to vote. As luck would have it, when they started marching the crowd was ordered to turn around so that the people in the back were in the front. There he was in the front of the line walking and singing. “We Shall Over Come.” Later he told us how uncomfortable he was when mile after mile his legs became chafed. “But that was nothing”, he recalled, “all of the sudden the police with sticks and their dogs came and rounded up the first 100 men, put us in wagons and put us all in a one man cell.

”My father died this year. He was nothing more, nothing less than my dad. When I asked him many years later, what gave you strength to leave us and go down there, he simply answered by saying,” if one kind of group is picked on the next one will be my group. I went for all of us.”

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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