Weave the Web
Recording Family Legends for Generations to Come
Hey Nanan, I read your email about the story you wanted, this isn't really a story but I still think you will like it. The essay is about the time where Martin Luther King Jr. came to speak at my school, apparently he was friends with a rabbi at the temple near my school and I just heard about this a couple of months ago, anyway, Merry Christmas Nanan.
XOXO TIm
Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaks at Jonathan Dayton High School
by Timothy Ware - December 2018
The Freedom Riders were a group of civil rights activists from different backgrounds, different ethnic groups, different ages and different genders who were willing to fight for what they believed in. They advocated for civil rights and fought segregation, challenging segregation laws by riding buses to
the south sitting at the front of the buses. They were beaten often for this but still persisted with their peaceful protest.
These Freedom riders inspired others to join the group. Among the people involved with the Freedom Riders was Charles Person, the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, just 18 at the time, a gifted student who had been denied access to the Georgia Institute of Technology because of his race. He decided to join the Freedom Riders because he believed in non-violent protest against segregation.
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Another young freedom rider, Joan Jaquelin Mulholland, was a 19-year-old white Duke University student who was arrested alongside other Freedom Riders in Jackson Miss. They were sent to prison and were refused to post bail by the officials which caused hundreds of activists to put pressure on the federal government.
Charles Person
Rabbi Israel Dresner, center
Joan Jaquelin Mulholland
A noticeable Freedom Rider, Rabbi Israel Dresner was only 32 when he joined the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders who went on the first ride were severally beaten to serve as an example to others as to what would happen if you joined a Freedom Ride. “ They beat the living daylights out of them” says Dresner, whose ride followed about a month after the first one. He was later given the title of most arrested rabbi in America, and he was proud of it .
Over five months the Freedom Riders tried to desegregate bus terminals, restrooms and lunch rooms. It was a dangerous undertaking, and many participants endured severe beatings and even imprisonment, but they continued to protest for desegregation in non-violent ways.
Rabbi Dresner was also good friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was invited to speak at Jonathan Dayton Regional high school on a Sunday evening. Undeterred by the protestors outside of the school he gave the speech to over 900 people in the auditorium. The speech titled, “Revolution in Religion” talked about moral and spiritual problems in our nation. Dr. King also addressed what he believed to be three basic evils in society: “ Racial Injustice, poverty and war.” In his speech he also argued that all people should have access to basic resources to live, and he suggested several ways to end the conflict in Vietnam which was becoming quite severe at the time.
Dr. Martin Luther King with Rabbi Dresner
Jonathan Dayton High School in Springfield, NJ
Some people were against the speech and thought that Dr. King should not have come to Springfield. Residents not only of Springfield, but other towns as well, protested outside the school and handed out flyers against him. On Sunday morning, police in Union had to stop the distribution of flyers after a Reverend at the St. Michael’s Catholic church complained to the police that there were five men in front of his church protesting.
