Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

Negotiating Coalition \\ 163
is to round out democracy wherever it is imperfect It involves fighting
on dozens of fronts to establish and safeguard the rights of all groups in
America wherever those rights are curtailed. 18
African Americans spent a good amount of time and effort in support of
Jewish causes such as immigration reform and, most important for Jewish organizations,
support for the state of Israel. Walter White spent months convincing
the Haitian and Liberian delegations to the UN to support the 1947 partition
plan, to the delight of Jewish groups. "Please accept my personal thanks and those
of the AJCongress for the magnificent job you did on the partition proposal,"
Will Maslow wrote to White. "It was indeed heartening to see how effectively you
work. I am sure that Haiti's shift was the direct result of your efforts." 19
Jewish organizations also spent much of their time furthering the cause
of Black civil rights even when Jewish interests were not at stake. Sometimes
new, temporary coalitions would form around particular issues, such as the
Committee for Civil Rights in East Manhattan which sought to integrate restaurants
near the new United Nations building. Other times, a national Jewish organization
or its local affiliate would spearhead the campaign, in consultation with
African American agencies. The AJCongress spent a decade in litigation against
Stuyvesant Town in New York City which refused to accept Black tenants despite
municipal aid and state and city anti-discrimination laws. For years the ADL
fought the American Bowling Congress on the question of permitting the participation
of Black bowlers. The major Jewish organizations filed supporting briefs
in every significant civil rights case before the Supreme Court and most state
courts, including Brown v. Board of Education and the Thompson restaurant case in
Washington, D.C. brought by Mary Church Terrell and the Coordinating
Committee for the Enforcement of D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws. 20
These examples of collaboration went far beyond direct or even indirect selfinterest,
as both communities moved toward a sense of the indissoluble nature of
equality. Far more public on each other's issues than was any other ethnic, racial,
or religious community as a whole, Black-Jewish cooperation brought tremendous
power to the civil rights struggle.
Nevertheless, priorities certainly differed between the communities, and even
between agencies within the same community, and not every cause of discrimination
was taken up as avidly by one group as by another. Jews remained more fearful
of direct confrontation, for example, and therefore almost unanimously
opposed CORE's 1947 Journey of Reconciliation to integrate southern interstate
transport. (The NAACP and NUL also kept their distance.) Most African
American groups tempered their criticism of anti-Semitism with reminders of
instances in which Jews exploited Blacks. 21
Separate considerations often led to differences in approach as well. Faced with
urgent needs and gross inequality, African American agencies focused on civil