The Hand of Esau - Mary Stanton

In 1955, the majority of Montgomery’s Jews confounded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by ignoring the Bus Boycott. Many were locked in a painful ambivalence, torn between applying the Torah’s ethic of justice and a desire to protect their homes and business interests and maintain their white status. People continue to agonize about what they did or didn’t do in those troubled days.

The 50th anniversary of the Bus Boycott, an event that destabilized the city and spread terror in the small Jewish community, offers an opportunity to examine roles that Jews played in this historic event and how their experience as Southern Jews influenced the choices they made. Why did some respond positively to the demand for social justice while others vehemently opposed it?

The experience of the Jewish community in Montgomery during its first hundred years shaped its collective response to the 1955/56 Bus Boycott; how Montgomery’s Jewish community dealt with this tension is the story of their Southern experience. The arrival of Jewish immigrants in Montgomery in the 1830s began a saga that eventually took on almost Biblical proportions, a tale of the second son’s struggle to outfox his elder brother, the designated heir, while desperately trying to maintain family peace: the story of Jacob and Esau write large.

Articles

From the Alabama Review

ABOUT MARY STANTON

Mary Stanton is a public administrator for the Town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. She has taught at the University of Idaho, The College of Saint Elizabeth in New Jersey, and Rutgers University, and is the author of From Selma To Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo (1998), Freedom Walk: Mississippi or Bust (2003), and Journey Toward Justice: Juliette Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (2006).

Her work has appeared in Southern Exposure, Alabama Heritage, and the Gulf South Historic Review.