Pained by the monstrosity of inequality

It was on March 25, 1968, 10 days before he was assassinated that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to us at our annual rabbinical assembly convention held at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, New York.
He had arrived late in the evening after spending the day in New York City championing the cause of those who in his words “suffered from the epidemic of injustice.” He had also come to join with us in celebrating the 60th birthday of his friend and our teacher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, professor of Jewish Ethics and mysticism. Heschel had presented two major addresses at the National Conference on Religion and Race and had been at King’s side in the Selma Civil Rights march.
               When King entered the auditorium he was greeted by 800 rabbis singing, “Anu Nitgaber,” “We Shall Overcome,” in Hebrew. Later he told us that while he had heard that song hundreds upon hundreds of times that was the first time he heard it chanted in Hebrew.
               I recall distinctly the moral authority he commanded. Many of us invested in the civil rights struggle were eager to receive direction from him as to where our energies should be channeled in order to advance the cause.
               While there was no one single phrase that I recall King saying that evening, I will never forget the words used by Heschel in introducing King. Heschel said that Martin Luther King, Jr. has been sent to us as a sign that God had not abandoned America.
               The evocative imagery associated with the biblical prophets of Israel was Heschel’s way of placing the civil rights struggle center stage as the dominant moral imperative of America. Heschel in class had often reminded us that the civil rights movement was God’s gift to America to test our integrity. To him it was magnificent spiritual opportunity.