United States and England: 1968–1969. 453 letters with twenty pieces of other material. Of the letters to WBAI: Fourteen letters from 1968; 245 from January 1969; sixty-four from February 1969; five from March and April 1969; eighty-six undated. With thirty-nine sent to the FCC (these are copies sent to WBAI). Conditions vary; generally very good. Item #Cat340

Julius Lester (1939–2018) was a Black academic, author, civil rights activist, photographer and musician. He taught at the New School for several years and then at UMass Amherst from 1971 until his retirement. In his highly decorated career, he authored over forty books, including a guide to the twelve-string guitar written with Pete Seeger; released several folk-blues albums; exhibited photographs, including at the Smithsonian Institution; and won numerous teaching awards.[1]

From 1968 to 1975 Lester hosted Uncle Tom’s Cabin on WBAI, an independent New York City radio station. Early in the show’s tenure, during the 1968 teachers’ strike over the firing of a number of mostly Jewish teachers from the majority Black Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district, Lester’s show aired a poem written by a young Black student at an unidentified New York City high school. The poem was dedicated to the striking United Federation of Teachers’ president, Albert Shanker, and opens:

“Hew jew boy with that yamaka on your head / You pale faced jew boy / I wish you were dead / I can see you jew boy /naw you cant hide / I got a scoop on you, yeah / you gonna die.”

Lester—who, incidentally, converted to Judaism in 1982—defended the poem and its airing, provoking backlash from listeners and from the Anti-Defamation League, which called for his resignation and picketed the station.

Offered here is a large archive of listener mail responding to this broadcast and to the later broadcast of a letter from a Black Queens College graduate. This letter also concerned anti-Semitism in the Black community, albeit with a much different tone than the student poem: the writer explains that “until quite recently” they had felt significant anti-Jewish sentiment because, having grown up in a Jewish neighborhood, they used to conceive of all white people as Jewish—and that listening to WBAI “was very instrumental not only in helping me to recognize my anti-Semitism, but in tracing its roots”. The original copy of this letter is contained in the archive; as a manuscript note on it remarks, it “started a second wave of complaint and precipitated the complaint from Shanker to the FCC”. The letter was broadcast on Larry Josephson’s In the Beginning, and much of the mail is addressed to him.

A tally on a filing folder totals the “hate” letters at 728 and “love” letters at 341; however, in this collection, the response is mostly positive. Moreover, within the positive response to the broadcasts are only a handful of openly anti-Semitic ones (“Good luck in your fight against the Jewish financial interests of New York City”). Nonetheless the “hate” contingent is well-represented: besides threats (“Don’t walk alone, cock-sucker and don’t take this lightly – we have pledged to get you and we mean it!”; “‘He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.’ And you will get yours, you may be sure”), a number of writers sent in poems of their own, usually riffs on the original poem, and generally containing abundant racial slurs and stereotypes about crime, welfare, and police brutality. Occasionally a rationale is offered: the station had defended its broadcasts on the basis of free speech, and therefore should air these poems as well.

In fact the better part of the supportive letters, including ones from listeners who vehemently disagreed with the broadcast content, also cite the importance of free speech as a reason for their continued support; for instance, Adele Lawrence writes:

“I am a subscriber and a Jew. Negro anti-semitism has upset me too. But I support the station’s policy 100%. Lets hear what black people are saying. Lets search our souls to find out why. And lets do something about it – instead of all this self-righteous over-reaction.”

Like Lawrence, most listeners felt the need to include some demographic information about themselves. It seems that the broadcasts had prompted listeners to introspect on their own identities, and to write in with their experiences, often in surprisingly thoughtful ways. A number had fled Nazi Germany, such as Liz Frankel, who writes:

“Who am I to talk? I came out of Germany in 1939 at the age of 17. My father was in a concentration camp, but was miraculously released. His health was broken, though, and he died in this country in 1945. I personally have severe psychological scars left from my experiences in Germany, that is one reason why I can understand the black man’s terrible life in this country. Why other refugees from Nazi Germany cannot, is beyond me.”

Kurt Obernbreit describes his reaction to the broadcasts, and how his views changed:

“On January 17, I wrote you a letter regarding the now famous Julius Lester/Leslie Campbell program in which I voiced a negative reaction. I did not hear the program but got all my information from the press at that time. Meanwhile you had the courtesy of sending me a copy of your report, I heard you on the Barry Gray show and some more material appeared in the press, including the Village Voice. I have now a much clearer picture of what actually occured [sic] and I must compliment you on the clarity of your report. I admit I reacted emotionally and I admit that I am very sensitive, maybe overly sensitive to expression[s] of Anti-Semitism, as I am myself a graduate of the real Mc Coy, namely the Hitlerian variety which I experienced personally. [...] I want to withdraw my criticism.”

One affecting, ambivalent letter from an Orthodox Jewish college student reflects on the poem and letter, and on her and Josephson’s Jewish identity. She writes, in part:

“You talk about being Jewish but you must realize that my whole life is Jewish and I happen to think that its great and I am very proud of that. I think its because I feel like this that I can understand how a person of any race or ethnic group feels and thats why I respect him. Since I did grow up in this community and went to the schools that I did go to unfortunately for myself I did not come in contact with any black people or even people from any other religious groups. [...] I can’t see anything wrong with [the poem] and I still don’t after all you’ve got the right to read anything over the air that you want. [...] my father said to me ‘did you hear about the poem that they read over that homo-sexual station that you listen to’ [...] well with my father I’m sometimes able to reason so I said ‘so what’ [...] Now thats crazy if we’re going to start punishing people for saying what they want then we might as well start having a secret police (if we don’t already) and the whole thing. [...] Larry I couldn’t write an anti-black poem if I wanted to or an anti any other group of people because they’ve never done anything to me. [...] I know the reading of the poem over the air can do no harm but further free speech which we need alot more of. But I am really afraid that it did something to me when you were talking this morning I felt you were directing your anger at me as a Jew and I kept on asking why? [...] Unlike the black girl who wrote you who seemed to have found her answer, all I have are thousands of questions.”

Another writer, Esther Aronson, discusses her historical experiences of Black–Jewish relations in the city:

“In the early 1930s my family lived in the Bronx. The scene was in the early depths of the depression. No one that I knew had as much as a spare dime. But there were enough families in this Bronx Jewish ghetto who could afford a day worker. The WASP communities were using white maids [...] the Jewish people, for many obvious reasons, used the negroes. And I must say in passing, that it is probable that the Jews were the only people as a group, who did hire negroes. [...] And the slave mart shaped up each Friday morning on certain corners in the community. The Jewish women came to the slave block to haggle about the price, to test the strength, select for whatever characteristic, the most desirable, their particular day worker. By 8 or 9 A.M. the scene broke up. The Jewish women taking home their particular catch, and the unhired negroes returning to Harlem minus 10¢ carfare. I don’t mean to imply that the Jewish women, alone, made the scene. The negro women came willingly to the slave block. These were the only people that would hire them. But then the most sordid bit of this scene developed. Even though I’m sure it wasn’t universally true, it was true enough to have reached my ears. [...] 1. Move the clock back so that an extra hour or two could be gleaned from the negro. 2. Cut the wage at the end of the day. 3. Pay part of the wage in old clothes. 4. Humiliate the negro, by talking deprecatingly about the lazy, stinking schwarter in broken English as if the negro was not there and listening etc. etc. [...] So the Jewish community has become the first area of vengeance. They were and are most intimately visible. But the police force was equally visible, and much more violent and deadly in the negro experience. [...] So I imagine what may be operating is a transfer of latent all American WASP anti-semitism into the issue.”

A number write in with their own experiences of ethnic prejudice. The writers are sometimes Jewish:

“my son, who as a kid in the heart of Manhattan, was beaten up by other white kids, only because he admitted that he attended afternoon classes in Hebrew school. I was screamed at and insulted in the very same area when I was seen putting posters of the American Jewish Congress in store windows”

and sometimes not, like Gerhard Weber, a German immigrant who “couldn’t get away from that epithet ‘nazi’”; and Shirly Niebanck, whose “son goes to public school and has been in this [WASP] minority constantly [...] he is being punished because he’s Gentile.” Many writers discuss WASP-hood; interestingly, there is a noticeable split between writers who identify Jewish people, including themselves, as distinct from white people, versus as “white and Jewish.”

Several letters also came in from NYC teachers who were in some way invested in the strike. Harriet Haberstroh writes in support:

“I [...] taught in P.S. 144 in Ocean Hill last school year. The strong anti-black sentiment was detectable among some of the Jewish teachers. As a former U.F.T. member, I cannot back Al Shanker in his claims of anti-semitism and favoritism of the black side. The UFT was given time.”

Rita Mandelman writes with a more equivocal tone:

“I am a subscriber: white, Jewish, middle class and a teacher (a deadly combination). I voted for and supported the first 2 strikes. I voted against but reluctantly supported the third strike. I have written to you before criticizing WBAI’s heavily one-sided coverage of the strike and its repercussions. [...] WBAI will not be living up to my ideal of ‘free speech radio’ until I start hearing some genuine discussion of the issues--some confrontations of opposing viewpoints. [...] You say that you have afforded the teacher’s Union many invitations that have not been accepted. I find this difficult to believe but I must accept your word on it. I have written Mr. Shanker to ask why. You are in error when you say that the Union has opposed the experiment in Ocean Hill from the beginning. The U.F.T. was instrumental in setting up the district. Only when things started running badly and Union people were critical of some of the leadership (or lack of it) did the hostilities erupt. You say the Union’s position has been ‘extensively reported’ in the media, implying that this relieves you of the responsibility of airing these views. Certainly the Ocean Hill position has been as extensively reported and supported in the press, so something is faulty in your logic. The only place the Union’s position is supported is in its own Newspaper and very often highly critical letters are printed there. (There is no lack of opposition to Mr. Shanker within the Union, as you have so often implied. It is as close to being a democratically run large organization as any I have ever seen.)”

One writer, “Eva,” a former nurse, reflects on her Jewish identity and the parallels between the teachers’ strike and the 1959 hospital workers’ strike:

“Black people hate the Jews because of the Jewish Teachers Union, or better because of Shanker who symbolizes it. Nobody loves the Jews because of Local ‘1199’ and its Jewish president Leon Davis. This man ‘has laid down his life on the line’ (to use your words) to upgrade the Black and Puerto Rican workers of the hospitals. [...] I was one of the few white hospital rank and filers who ‘laid down her life’ to help Black Hospital workers out of their misery. For the last 9 years I have considered this to be the main purpose of my living. For the last 9 years my bosses conducted an extermination campaign against me for my anger, hatred of them and my fanatical activity. As a result not only am I out of my job, but confined to my bed with an incurable illness. While being in the very same hospital as a patient recently, I was treated with bitter hatred by one of the nurses for absolutely no reason at all. The only reason was that she is Black and I am Jewish, and I was much too ill to defend myself. [...] When my son was 9 years old he was beaten up, and thrown into the snow by white Americans because he is a Jew. I was cursed and insulted by white Americans because of the same reason. [...] Well, the American Nazi party must be delighted about the way things are turning out in the Black community. [...] Also all the Nazis in Germany and Austria are jubilant about the way things are developing in this country. My mother was murdered by a German Nazi, I and my son will be murdered by an American Negro! Wonderful!”

Overall the archive is dense with personal stories and reflections about identity—Jewish and otherwise—in New York City, and the contentious relationship between the city’s Black and Jewish populations. Of interest to scholars of the city’s ethnic tensions at the time, the 1960s counterculture, and especially the social construction of race.

Provenance: From the estate of Rabbi A. Bruce Goldman, who hosted Up Against the Wailing Wall on WBAI in the 1970s.

[1] Margalit Fox, “Julius Lester, Chronicler of Black America, Is Dead at 78,” The New York Times, January 19, 2018.

Price: $15,000.00