Gone But Not Forgotten

We were saddened this morning to read of the passing of the Reverend Abraham L. Woods Jr., a leader of the Civil Rights movement. A friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. (and one of the men standing behind him during his "I Had A Dream" speech), Rev. Woods fought for equality his entire life: from organizing voter registration drives in Alabama in the 1950s to protesting continued segregation of country clubs as late as the 1990s. He only just retired as the Birmingham chapter president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 2006 at 78 years old.

One of his 18 grandchildren shared with The New York Times  that Rev. Woods was moved to see America elect its first African American president saying, “If I could wake up Martin, Coretta, Rosa...I would tell them that my son Barack made it.”


Historically, the participation of the Jewish community in the Civil Rights movement has been significant. In March of next year, the Museum will examine the relationship between the black and Jewish communities in  From Swastika to Jim Crow. This exhibit will tell the story of how Jewish academics, fleeing persecution in Europe in the 1930s, found positions at the historically black colleges and universities in the Jim Crow south.