Faith and Solidarity

The recent film "Selma" reminds us of the crucial role that black church leaders like Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played in the fight for civil rights. The film also showcased Nation of Islam and civil rights leader Malcolm X, whose legacy proves that faith plays a leading role in the struggle for liberation. Despite their differences, the legacies of these two men were largely shaped by their religious values. People outside the black community were also driven by their own faiths towards the fight for racial justice. During the Freedom Summer, many white Jewish youth participated in this effort, pouring down from the North to help African Americans register to vote. These included Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, students from New York, who were brutally murdered by the Ku Klux Klan along with James Chaney, a local Congress of Racial Equality leader.

Recently, the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other black individuals killed by police officers have brought national attention to the issue of institutional racism and the need for reform in our nation's judicial system. Many leaders within the religious community have carried the tradition of their predecessors and used their faith to bring an end to racial inequality. Last semester, Pusey Minister at Harvard's Memorial Church Reverend Jonathan Walton, preached a sermon at a die-in protest that called for students, faculty, and other members of the community to take a stand against racial oppression. However, there has been a clear racial divide among Christian clergy who have used the power of their pulpits to expose and expunge the racial injustices that have plagued our country for centuries. Similarly, too many Jewish institutions have been woefully silent, although organizations like T’ruah and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice have taken a strong stand, with many activists getting arrested in solidarity protests. Despite the arguably muted response from some within the Muslim community, many Muslim leaders have also utilized their efforts in combating issues of racial justice; activists such as Linda Sarsour, Mustafa Abdullah, and Faizan Syed, founders of Muslims for Ferguson, organized the Muslim community around issues of mass incarceration and police brutality.

Religious traditions have been the base of social justice and allyship for many movements in the past. It is crucial to revive this and make sure religious organizations are promoting the values espoused in their holy books of peace, justice and freedom. It is especially important in this day and age with such diversity and interconnectedness to emphasize solidarity between different communities and fight not only for your own rights but for those of people everywhere. As Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “ Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Throughout the world, people have been embracing their duty to protect people of different racial or religious groups even when being persecuted themselves. In Pakistan in 2013, Muslims formed a circle around a church following a suicide bombing against Christians. In Egypt’s Arab Spring movement, the opposite took place, with Christians surrounding their Muslim fellow activists as they prayed amid the protests. After the recent attack on a synagogue in Denmark, Norwegian Muslims formed a “ring of peace” around a synagogue in Oslo. This past summer, Muslims in Gaza communicated with protesters in Ferguson via Twitter to give them advice on how to handle being tear gassed by the police. These acts of solidarity demonstrate the possibilities when communities of faith join together in support of one another.

We should start by trying to build solidarity between different religious, cultural, racial, and ethnic groups on Harvard’s campus. We need conversations about how our religious traditions and values motivate us to pursue social justice. Our religious traditions provide hope for a better world and the communities to walk with on our way there. It is important that we showcase what it looks like when we orient our religion towards what it’s really about—making the world a better place. In a world full of racial and ethnic struggle, it is critical that communities of faith take an active role in living out the value our traditions place on the dignity of human life. In that spirit, faith can ground organizing not only within our respective communities, but also across racial and religious bounds in solidarity. On Wednesday, February 25th, the Harvard Progressive Jewish Alliance, Harvard Black Students Association, Harvard Islamic Society, and the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations are coming together for an event called “From Selma to Ferguson: Religious Tradition as Solidarity”. The event will feature veterans of the Civil Rights Movement and modern activists for racial justice from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities. It is our hope that this conversation will lead to more conversation and more action across religious communities on Harvard’s campus.

Sonya A. Karabel ‘18 lives in Matthews Hall and is a member of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Lana A. Idris ‘16 is an African and African American Studies concentrator in Quincy House and the current President of the Harvard Islamic Society. Keyanna Y. Wigglesworth ‘16 is a Social Studies concentrator in Cabot House and a member of Black Students Association.