OPINION:
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that humanity must choose between chaos and community. In a world marked by antisemitism, wars, rumors of wars, racial division and religious hostility, that choice remains urgent.
King envisioned a “world house” in which humanity’s interdependence required people to learn to live together. Yet we cannot build that house if we forget the people who helped build our communities.
I fear that younger generations are increasingly being misinformed by social media. Too many students are learning from influencers instead of scholarship. And too often, controversy receives more attention than contribution.
People were interested in these podcasts
Every semester, I ask my economics students who said, “My brain is the key that sets me free.” The answer is Harry Houdini, born Erik Weisz, a Jewish immigrant. The lesson is simple: The greatest form of capital is not money. It is the human mind.
As a Black economist, theologian, ordained minister and educator, I recognize the historic relationship between African Americans and Jewish Americans. Both communities have experienced discrimination, exclusion and the struggle for dignity.
Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald helped finance schools that educated generations of Black children in the segregated South.
During the Civil Rights Movement, two Jewish men, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, joined a Black man named James Chaney in the fight for voting rights in Mississippi. All three were murdered.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside King in Selma, Alabama, describing his participation as “praying with his feet.”
My grandmother, Rev. Odie Bell Dusom-Tutt, so cherished her friendship with a Jewish family in Owensboro, Kentucky, that she named my uncle Coleman in their honor because people could not pronounce the Jewish name.
Years later, while I painted dumpsters for a Jewish-owned business, its owner, Max Hyman, encouraged me to attend college. That fall, I enrolled at Morehead State University. After graduating, I gained commercial real estate experience with The Schreiber Company, a Jewish-owned business in Pittsburgh.
These experiences taught me that dignity transcends race and religion, prejudice thrives as knowledge declines and education builds bridges across ignorance.
Dr. King warned 60 years ago that humanity must choose between chaos and community. That choice remains before us.
I hope that through education, understanding and the power of the human mind, we choose a “world house” that can still become a beloved community.
DWAYNE L. TUTT
Statesville, North Carolina
Please read our comment policy before commenting.