Focus on Issues They Came to March for Brotherhood

The massive march on rural Forsyth County, Georgia, on January 24 was more than a demonstration against the hostile racism that occurred there one week earlier. Rather, according to consensus, it was a collective show of solidarity against the racial intolerance that has occurred recently in Howard Beach, NY, at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., and in recent racial incidents in Philadelphia and Boston.

“This thing developed a life of its own,” said Sherry Frank, Southeastern director of the American Jewish Committee. Frank commented that the Ku Klux Klan’s hostile appearance January 17 in Forsyth County, situated 38 miles north of Atlanta, shocked the sensibilities of the nation and was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The largest civil rights march in more than two decades, estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 bore witness to the change that has occurred with the passing of time. Nearly half the marchers on January 24 in Forsyth County were white and this time the law was on the side of the demonstrators, not against them as it was in the 1960’s.

DEMONSTRATION RESEMBLED AN ARMY CAMP

In fact, the scene of the demonstration resembled an army camp: Some 1,700 Georgia National Guardsmen in riot regalia were joined by law enforcement officials from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Georgia State Patrol and a myriad of law enforcement officials from jurisdictions in and around metropolitan Atlanta.

In all, a force of nearly 3,000 kept an angry group of about 1,000 counter-demonstrators at bay, staving off a potential confrontation with the marchers.

Prior to leaving Atlanta for the ride to Cumming, the county seat of Forsyth, 175 busloads of participants, including this reporter, waited anxiously, not knowing what lay ahead.

JEWS WERE WELL REPRESENTED

Frank said that Jews, from Atlanta and elsewhere, were well represented in proportion to their percentage of the country’s population. And if it had not been for the Shabbat, she said, more Jews would have participated.

“The words of the counter-demonstrators last week (January 17) were an affront to Jews as well as to Blacks,” she said.

On January 17, about 90 people, men, women, children, both Black and white, went to Forsyth County to march for brotherhood in the all-white county. Blacks have not been welcome there for 75 years. But, to the surprise of everyone, the brotherhood marchers were met by 400 screaming Ku Klux Klansmen and their allies. Obscene racial epithets were hurled at the group as was a barrage of bottles and rocks.

The organizer of the march, civil rights veteran Rev. Hosea Williams, said afterward it was the most violent, hate-filled group he had ever encountered. Representatives of three Jewish groups joined with Atlanta’s Black leaders to plan the second march for brotherhood in Forsyth County. They were the Atlanta chapters of the American Jewish Committee, the Black-Jewish Coalition and the American Jewish Congress.

A permit was secured. Law enforcement, housing and transportation were arranged. But, no one anticipated the outpouring of support that came from throughout the nation.

Frank said Jews lent much in the way of support for the second brotherhood march. A local hotel, owned by a Jewish Atlantan, made 100 rooms available to the dignitaries who came in to march. And, Atlanta’s largest Reform Temple opened its doors for other demonstrators who had no place to sleep. Those arrangements were made by The Temple’s rabbi, Alvin Sugarman.

“We share a history of oppression with Blacks,” Sugarman told The Atlanta Jewish Times. “It’s in different forms and to different degrees, but we know what it means to be in an underclass, to be oppressed solely by virtue of birth–we as Jews, they as Blacks.”

VEHEMENCE TOWARD JEWS AND BLACKS

For most of those who came to demonstrate against racial intolerance, the march provided their first glimpse at the vehemence some Americans feel toward Jews and Blacks. Many of the Klan sympathizers wore swastikas and many were young teenagers, striking a sense of fear in some observers that the seeds of intense racial hatred are once again being sown.

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith said there are probably 10 Klan sympathizers for each of the 200 Klan members who they estimate reside in Georgia.

“We’ve known for years that Forsyth County is a white enclave and that the people there are determined to keep it that way,” said Charles Wittenstein, the ADL’s southern civil rights director. “In both Howard Beach and Forsyth County, you have white youths expressing a territorial impulse, which is to defend their turf against outsiders, particularly of a different race.”

Wittenstein also noted that ADL’s estimates on the numbers of Klan members are difficult to attain. Often, he said, Klan leaders themselves don’t know how many members they’ve got.

What will become of Forsyth County now that the historic march through that small southern county is done and gone?

“Blacks will move back into Forsyth,” said Sugarman. “But, it won’t be tomorrow and it may not be next year. Eventually the ‘good leadership,’ and I’m putting that in quotes, will take charge. But, it’s not going to be easy to integrate Forsyth County.”