Since 1987, Temple Emanuel has been commemorating and celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a special Shabbat evening service the Friday before the national MLK holiday.
The 2023 MLK Service was presented on January 13. Our guest speaker was Gloria Shepherd, Executive Director of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. Why Ms. Shepherd? Because for all of the talk about the need to fulfill Dr. King's vision -- talk which is important -- it is also important to hear from those doing the actual work to deal with and begin to dismantle elements of structural racism. And as Ms. Shepherd explained, this is precisely one of the missions of the FHWA as it implements the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in cooperation with impacted communities. Near the beginning of her presentation, she used this link from Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to illustrate the approach now being taken by the federal government.
Our service also included readings presented by Candace Groudine, Alexander Ratner, Joanna and Solomon Silver, and Josie Karesh. I had the privilege of introducing Gloria. Rabbi Adam Rosenwasser and Cantor Lindsay Kanter officiated. (The service also included a 60th Wedding Anniversary blessing of Val and Stan Fagen.) All, along with Gloria, are pictured below.
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| (Thank you to Sandy Fleishman for preparing this flyer) The full service may be viewed here. Gloria's presentation begins at 55:21. |
READING NO. 1 (Candace Groudine): These are fraught times, as illustrated by a former President’s recent dinner party in his own home with anti-semites and white supremacists. But we also see a revival of the alliance of the Black and Jewish Communities to oppose these twin– and very much related – evils. The steadfast alliance of the two senators from Georgia, African-American Raphael Warnock and Jewish-American Jon Ossoff is symbolic of both the unity of today, and the struggles of the past. https://www.latimes.com/
Here at Temple Emanuel, we display with pride the iconic photograph of Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the Selma March which led to the enactment of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rabbi Heschel was Dr. King’s great ally and scholar of the Jewish Prophetic Tradition, and he reminded us that the “prophet was an individual who said ‘No’ to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency. The purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner man as well as to revolutionize history."
In the spirit of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, this evening is a time to redouble our efforts to challenge white supremacy and anti-semitism. Part of doing this is to step back and remember the words of Dr. King and see clearly the challenges we face as a society.
READING NO. 2 (Alexander Ratner): Dr. King’s vision was rooted in a faith that right would prevail: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But he also knew that only through the work of our own hands would the world become a better place:
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. . . . No social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals, who are willing to be co-workers with God."
This evening, we give thanks to all those who engage in that “tireless effort and persistent work.”
READING NO. 3 (Joanna Silver and Solomon Silver): Dr. King often described our world as a “Great World House in which we have to live together -- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu -- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace."
Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson, in her book Caste, provides a take on this metaphor, which takes us deeper into the problems posed by us all living in this house.
“We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waived away for decades, centuries even.
“Many people may rightly say, ‘I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.’
“And, yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, BUT THEY ARE OURS TO DEAL WITH NOW.
“And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands.”
Our ability to deal with this broken house is America’s moral challenge in the 21st Century. We can only repair this house if we face up to its defects. And some of these defects are actually part of our physical infrastructure. This evening, we will learn about some of the repair that is going on, below the national headlines.
READING NO. 4 (Josie Karesh): In recent years, much of the progress we made in the last half of the 20th Century has been under attack, through the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act and the resurgence of forces of White Supremacy.
Nevertheless, the “tireless effort and persistent work” continued and bore fruit in Georgia as Dr. King’s most recent successor as minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Reverend Raphael Warnock, won re-election to the United States Senate. And in Maryland, where, in two state-wide contests, African American candidates overwhelmingly defeated right-wing extremists who denied the results on the 2020 election and, in one case, was a member of the neo-Confedarate League of the South who calls the song “Dixie” our national anthem. https://www.adl.org/
As we will learn tonight, the federal government, through the initiatives mandated by those who we have elected, is now involved in specific programs to dismantle infrastructure legacies of racism.
Let us learn in order to teach.
Let us learn in order to do.
INTRODUCTION OF GLORIA SHEPHERD (David Fishback): In a society in which many people talk the talk about advancing Dr. King’s vision, we need to hear from people who are doing the actual work needed to get there.
I am fortunate enough to have become a friend of Gloria Shepherd, who is one of those people. We are grateful that she is our speaker this evening.
Last year Gloria was appointed Executive Director of the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, after having served for fifteen years as the FHWA’s Associate Administrator for Planning, Environment, and Realty. Before that, she served for eight years as Director of the FHWA’s Office of Planning. An attorney by training, Gloria previously worked at the Maryland State Highway Administration and the New York State Department of Transportation.
In these public service roles, she has worked tirelessly toward achieving environmental justice in the implementation of highway policy. As Executive Director of the FHWA, Gloria is guiding the agency as it administers more than $350 billion as part of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. A major part of these initiatives are focused on securing justice in the vital building and rebuilding of our transportation infrastructure, knowing that the dismantling of institutional racism requires the rectifying of past injustices, assuring past mistakes are never repeated, and acting with intentionality. This evening, she will be sharing with us some of those initiatives, speaking in her individual capacity.
At the time of her elevation to her present job, Gloria recognized, in her words, “the enormous responsibility that comes with the position. I am grateful that history has allowed me to fulfill the dreams of my parents and relatives who have gone on and bent their shoulders low, so I could stand on them in this position of public service.”
At that same time, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg observed that “We are lucky to have [Gloria’s] expertise, insight, and dedication as we work to modernize our nation’s roads, bridges, and highways to serve the American people now and for generations to come.”
And we are equally fortunate to have her speak to us this evening.
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