militarism in America. But ten days beore the Seder, Dr. King was murdered, called across a dierentriver to a dierent Land o Promise.His death called orth a Black uprising in many American cities, ollowed by the U.S. Army’s armedoccupation o many inner-city communities, including my neighborhood in Washington DC.Walking past the troops as I prepared or that Passover 41 years ago, I was overwhelmed to ndmysel eeling and thinking, “This is Pharaoh’s Army!” That experience renewed and transormed my own understanding o the Seder. I elt mysel calledto write a Freedom Seder that would celebrate the reedom struggles o Black America and o otherpeoples alongside the Jewish tale o liberation. It was published in
Ramparts
magazine and as a tinypocket-sized book in 1969, illustrated by Lloyd McNeill, a Black artist-activist.On April 4, 1969, the rst anniversary o Dr. King’s death and the third night o Passover that year, agroup called Jews or Urban Justice sponsored the rst Freedom Seder. It was held in the basement o Lincoln Congregational Temple, the oldest Arican American Congregational Church in Washington, DC.About 800 people—Blacks, Jews, white Christians—took part. The Seder was broadcast in New York byWBAI and across Canada by the CBC.In 1970, the Freedom Seder was published by Holt Rinehart Winston. It was celebrated by about4,000 people in the Cornell University Fieldhouse, providing an opportunity or the brie liberation romunderground o Father Daniel Berrigan, an anti-war resister who was being pursued by the FBI.During the years since 1969, the original Freedom Seder has seeded a great harvest o newversions o the Seder that have spoken to many orms o reedom: eminism, peace between Israelisand Palestinians, ending the danger o nuclear holocaust, achieving eco-sanity, solidarity with LatinAmerican movements against tyrannical rulers, personal spiritual liberation and more. For millennia,rom year to year to year to year, the Seder has renewed the lives o amilies and riends, has welcomedthe newborn and accompanied the dying.Now it is we who renew the Seder, rebirthing the Telling o reedom itsel as the Telling rebirths us.Forty years ater the rst Freedom Seder, the proound questions Dr. King raised in his Riverside Churchspeech exactly one year beore his death—militarism, racism, materialism as the triplets o dangercorrupting American society—have risen beore us again, as he warned they might. The link betweenconstant warare abroad and constant shortalls in meeting human needs at home has become evenclearer. Even larger numbers o people have lost their jobs and stand on the edge o the pit o poverty.Materialism run amok threatens to gobble up the earth, to kill thousands o species and disrupt the veryclimate that weaves our web o lie .Forty years ater the rst Freedom Seder, new Pharaohs have arisen. The institutional Pharaohs o our day are pressing down not just one people, one community, or another, but all the peoples on ourplanet and the web o lie itsel. In this Freedom Seder, we address Dr. Martin Luther King’s warningabout “the giant triplets o racism, extreme materialism, and militarism,” which have threatened the veryearth that sustains us all.For the Passover story reminds us: not only do new Pharaohs arise in every generation; so also do newgrass-roots movement to ree ourselves rom these new pharaohs. Forty years ater the rst FreedomSeder, America today stands also on the brink o hope, “mixing memory with desire, stirring dull rootswith spring rain.”2
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