Time to Break the Silence on Palestine

Michelle Alexander is a legal scholar, activist and public theologian whose work has long been of great inspiration to the Veterans of Hope Project.  She just wrote a beautiful and powerful essay in the NY Times about the need for all people of conscience to speak clearly against the immoral assault on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government.  The article is HERE

The article was published on the weekend of the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and in it, Prof. Alexander reminds us of King’s courageous 1967 public statement against the Vietnam War, a statement that our co-founder, Vincent Harding, helped craft, and one that led to a horrific political backlash against King and the movement to which he gave leadership.

Dr. Harding used to say that America was comfortable with King talking about a limited notion of “civil rights” for Black people in the USA, but when he began connecting human rights for Black and poor people in this country to the horrific political and economic violence that the US government supported around the world, he had “gotten out of his place.”  But King knew that his “place”, as a minister of the Gospel and as a representative of the long struggle for freedom of Black people in this country, could not be circumscribed by such narrowness and he spoke out because, as he said, “my conscience leaves me no other choice.”

As the daughter and niece of Vincent and Rosemarie Freeney Harding, we are quite certain that our parents/uncle/aunt would be tremendously proud of Michelle Alexander for joining her erudite and compassionate voice to those of others around the world who call for an end to US support for the murder and dehumanization of Palestinian people.  We are proud of her as well.

– Rachel and Gloria