They Kept Walking

There are weeks when history feels distant. And then there are weeks when it feels personal.

The deaths of Jo Ann Bland and Jesse Jackson are not abstract losses to me. I had the honor and privilege of meeting them both — and, over the years, of building a friendship with Jo Ann.

I first met Jo Ann in 2012 when I brought high school students to Selma. We stayed in touch through Facebook, having conversations about her vision for Foot Soldiers Park. In 2022, I returned to Selma with Black Jewish leaders and Black rabbinical students on a civil rights trip and got to see her again. In 2023, I returned once more and spent time with her.

Selma 2022 with Jo Ann Bland

I consider myself a student of history. But meeting Jo Ann reminded me that there is only so much one can learn from a book. Jo Ann taught history through her body and her memory. She was a child on Bloody Sunday. She survived the violence of that day alongside her sister Lynda Blackmon Lowery, John Lewis, and so many others.

They were children. Children who could have died on that bridge.

There is something different about being taught by someone who was there. She taught me and others the pain and terror of that day.

Eventually she and many others would cross that bridge, creating better opportunities for all of us.

When she first met me, I’m not sure she knew that a Black person could be a rabbi. And then years later, when I brought several Black rabbinical students with me, she was overjoyed to meet us.

Selma 2022

Jesse Jackson represented something similar — a continuity of moral witness. He modeled for future Black clergy and beyond what it means to refuse to separate faith from justice. He stood in pulpits and on picket lines. He reminded America that the fight for dignity is ongoing. I am honored to have met him and his family, and to have thanked him personally for paving the way for so many of us.

Montgomery AL, 2023

With both of them gone, it feels like we have lost a generation. The generation that dismantled segregation. Those who understood that the right to vote was a right worth dying for. And they understood that faith without action is hollow.

There is a particular grief in losing elders.

In Jewish tradition, when we lose someone, we say zikhronam livracha — may their memory be a blessing. But memory cannot be passive. It asks something of us.

Years ago I wrote a song called “Kaddish.” When I wrote it, I was thinking about the way grief and obligation sit side by side. Even though we say Kaddish in memory of someone who has died, it is a prayer that magnifies life. It insists on sanctifying God’s name even in the presence of loss.

Jo Ann and Jesse magnified life. They refused to let violence have the final word. They walked forward when retreat would have been easier.

We are watching a generational transition. The witnesses of that era are leaving us. The bridge is still there. The work is still unfinished.

It is not our job to replace them. We cannot.

But it is our responsibility to carry forward what they embodied.

We do not get to inherit the glory without inheriting the responsibility.

There is a hole left by their passing. It will not be filled. But perhaps that is not the point.

Perhaps the point is that the hole reminds us to step forward.

To preach and use our voices with moral clarity.

To organize with courage.

To sing boldly, even when our voices shake.

To walk, even when the road feels long.

Jo Ann walked that bridge as a child.

Jesse marched when the stakes were high.

Now it is our turn.

May their memories be a blessing.

May their lives be a charge.

And may we keep on walking.

“Keep Walkin’” is a song I wrote after the 60th anniversary of the March from Selma to Montgomery. You can hear it below.