As part of last week’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noted local history writer Brian Burnes recounted six visits the civil rights leader made to Kansas City. The story first appeared in the Jackson County Historical Society‘s E-Journal and was then republished on Flatland, the digital magazine for Kansas City PBS. The following is Burnes’ account of a 1961 visit to B’nai Jehudah.
On March 15 King spoke to 400 persons at a “Temple Brotherhood” dinner at Congregation B’nai Jehudah, one of the oldest Reform Jewish congregations in the country and the oldest synagogue in the Kansas City area, then located at 69th Street and Holmes Road.
At the dinner King explained that he favored non-violent resistance as a method for ending oppression.
“With this method, one can affect moral ends with moral means,” King said. “One can deal with an unjust system and still maintain love for those who, perhaps by training, were caught up in the system.”
King likely had been invited to speak by Rabbi William Silverman, who had come to lead B’nai Jehudah in 1960 after proving to be an outspoken civil rights advocate in Tennessee.
In 1958, following the bombing of a Nashville Jewish community center, Silverman had delivered an address defending his support for the integration of Nashville schools.
Silverman caught the attention of Rabbi Samuel Mayerberg, who by 1960 had led B’nai Jehudah since 1928 and had established his own social justice legacy as a frequent critic of the political machine led by Tom Pendergast.
At B’nai Jehudah, Silverman went on to lead the Greater Kansas City Council on Religion and Race, while also serving as a public advocate for fair housing legislation.
“Rabbi Silverman was rabbi of the largest and most influential and oldest Jewish congregation in the city,” said Bill Worley, history professor at the Metropolitan Community College-Kansas City’s Blue River Campus in Independence.
“While Dr. King was primarily concerned against discrimination against African Americans, he was certainly open to creating alliances with people like Rabbi Silverman,” Worley added.
“King’s taking on the fair housing issue was really part and parcel of the overall civil rights dialogue going on at that time.”
Worley, the author of a “J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City,” a 1990 biography of the Kansas City real estate developer, said that Kansas City proponents of fair housing legislation believed they would benefit from their association with King.
“He was invited to B’nai Jehudah to give greater influence to the efforts to get fair housing ordinances passed,” Worley said.
The Kansas City Council approved an initial fair housing ordinance in 1967. While opponents prompted a referendum election on the ordinance the following year, that vote was cancelled after the council unanimously approved a new ordinance incorporating the protections against discrimination included in The Civil Rights Act of 1968.
President Lyndon Johnson would sign that legislation on April 11, 1968, one week after King’s assassination.
