Everyone is familiar with Wall Street in New York where stock trades are made, but are you familiar with Black Wall Street, an area in Tulsa, Oklahoma? It’s the place where African Americans built their own economy with grocery stores, schools, homes, churches, hospitals, hotels, and other businesses. By 1921, they owned 35 square blocks of property in this community where they flourished, until one day, there was the Tulsa race massacre where this entire community was burned to the ground.
Unfortunately, this community was never the same again and very few people were able to keep their family homes that were destroyed. In a time of segregation, this type of community was necessary to carry out the law, “separate by equal”. I can recall my grandmother, Jimmie Hooks, born in 1930, before her passing this year at age 93, stating that her grandfather had a business, but could not own a home. She would say, “Ain’t that crazy”. This is no longer the case today, every man is considered equal, or are they?
Continue reading Build a Stronger Economy: Focus on Minorities & Opportunity Zones – by Rachel Hooks
Some people are just made to cause, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, “good trouble.” They’re contrarian by nature. It’s in their DNA. It ignites their fury. It explains their courage to put life and limb at risk for what they believe in.
It was an honor to share my perspective as a Jew and diversity professional at Chattanooga’s MLK interfaith service commemorating The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That event was years ago but my passion for diversity is a lifelong legacy from my father, a US World War II military intelligence officer whose letters describing Naziism reside in Cincinnati’s American Jewish Archives. Having dedicated decades to tikkun olam, Hebrew for ‘repair of the world,’ I resonate to this day to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”
With Hoffman’s message in mind, we should magnify our efforts to preserve the languages, cultures and traditions that have made our diverse world so memorable, including Yiddish.