Dr. Rogers Introduces Shared Legacies at the Atlanta Summit of Black Pastors and Rabbis

On August 25, 2026, Dr. Rogers introduced our documentary Shared Legacies: The African American-Jewish Civil Rights Alliance to the 100 rabbis, Black clergy, Black Jewish leaders and community leaders in attendance.

I am deeply honored to stand in this historic church -- a place where Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. preached, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a nation, and where today Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock and Dr. John Vaughn continue that extraordinary legacy.

And I am humbled by the leaders gathered in this room.

Dean Lawrence Carter, founding dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College; Ambassador Andrew Young; Reverend Dr. Benjamin Chavis; Dr. Susannah Heschel; Van Jones; Rabbi Ambassador David Saperstein --and so many rabbis, pastors, scholars, activists, and leaders whose lives embody the work that brings us together.

Just this past March, we gathered here at Ebenezer to unveil portraits of Jewish civil rights leaders who would be inducted into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel’s Hall of Honor. For the first time, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, Joel Elias Spingarn, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, and other Jewish leaders would be honored alongside their African American partners.

That partnership is at the heart of Shared Legacies.

In 2015, at the 50th anniversary of the Selma bridge crossing, we began recording eyewitness testimonies about the African American–Jewish Civil Rights Alliance. One interview led to another, and we realized we were capturing something precious: the voices of people who lived this history and helped make it.

Those recordings became the foundation of our award-winning documentary, Shared Legacies, and ultimately a middle and high school curriculum now reaching students and educators across the country.

The historic African American–Jewish Civil Rights Alliance offers a powerful example of two communities recognizing something of themselves in one another -- communities with profoundly different histories and experiences who understood that the struggle for justice could not belong only to one of them.

That is what we mean when we talk about “spilling the honey.”

The idea comes in part from Holocaust survivor Eliezer Ayalon. Before being separated from his mother during the Holocaust, she gave him a cup of honey and blessed him with the hope that he would have a sweet life.

After unimaginable loss, Eliezer eventually chose to tell his story -- to allow what he carried within him to spill outward and connect him to others.

Dr. King understood something similar. Confronted by hatred and violence, he refused to allow hatred to define the response.

To spill the honey is to move beyond ourselves toward one another—to recognize that the other is essential to our own humanity.

That is the work of Spill the Honey: using story, education, art, music, and human relationships to confront racism, antisemitism, and hatred -- and to build bridges.

And Atlanta has been part of this journey from the beginning. Shared Legacies received its first award here -- the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival’s Building Bridges Jury Prize.

Building bridges. That is why we are here.

Tonight, you will see a special 20-minute excerpt of Shared Legacies. And as it concludes, you will hear another powerful voice.

Several years ago, Sherry Frank introduced me to Mali Wilson and said, “You need to meet her. She should score Shared Legacies.”

She was right. Mali is a Grammy-nominated producer, singer-songwriter, composer, and humanitarian. As a woman who is both Black and Jewish, she brings a deeply personal understanding to the history and hope at the heart of this work.

Our collaboration grew into friendship, shared purpose, and ultimately the song “No More Silence” -- a call to use our voices, stand against hatred, and stand up for one another.

At the conclusion of the film, you will hear my friend, my sister in this work, and the voice of Spill the Honey, Mali Wilson, sing “No More Silence.”

And then, here in Dr. King’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, you will have the extraordinary gift of hearing Mali sing it live.

This history is not simply something we inherit. It is a responsibility we carry forward.

May Shared Legacies remind us what is possible when people find the courage to stand together -- and inspire us to find that courage again today.

Thank you, and welcome to Shared Legacies.