From McCain North Carolina Prison to Moscow Prison: A Letter from Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., to Natan Sharansky

Nearly five decades ago, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. —now Chair of Spill the Honey—recognized the powerful parallels between the African American and Jewish struggles for freedom and justice.

In 1978, while unjustly imprisoned as part of the Wilmington Ten, Chavis penned a heartfelt letter from McCain Correctional Facility in North Carolina to Jewish dissident and human rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky (who took on the name Natan Sharansky in 1978 when he was released from prison, made aliyah to Israel, and received a new passport). Both men were imprisoned on false charges—Chavis in the U.S. and Shcharansky in the Soviet Union—united by their shared fight against oppression.

Though Soviet authorities blocked the letter from being delivered to Shcharansky at the time, its message endured. At last month’s 11th Annual ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism, Chavis finally read his powerful words aloud—this time, directly to Sharansky.

McCain State Prison

McCain, North Carolina

September 4, 1978

Dear Anatoly B. Shcharansky:

Please receive this letter out of my utmost respect for you and the global cause for freedom, justice, equality.

Antisemitism is an outrage to humanity. Racism and antisemitism are crimes against humanity. 

As you have now been unjustly sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in Moscow, I welcome you to the international fraternity of prisoners of conscience who are “political prisoners!” I am currently unjustly serving a 34-year prison sentence in the United States of America as a member of the Wilmington Ten in my home state of North Carolina.

I have read with great admiration of your courage and commitment to end the treacherous treatment and oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union today. The religious, ethnic, social and political discrimination against Jews and the persecution of Jewish families and communities are evil affronts to the love and grace of God. 

Likewise the racial, ethnic, social and political discrimination against and persecution of African American families and communities are also affronts (evil) to the love and grace of God. 

I pray for your freedom and liberation. I extend to you on behalf of colleagues who are political prisoners in America and known as the Wilmington Ten, our profound solidarity to you and to all of our Jewish sisters and brothers in the Soviet Union.

One day in the future the prison doors will open up and our chains will all fall off. In the meantime let’s keep the faith and build an international movement to end antisemitism and racism throughout the world. 

As Abraham declared centuries ago in Genesis 14:14-16 when he learned that his relative had been taken captive, he called out, “the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” Abraham’s actions to liberate Lot and others from captivity was an early biblical example of taking a stand against unjust domination, imprisonment, and captivity.

I recall in the early 1960s when I worked as a young statewide youth coordinator in NC for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. there was an unbreakable bond and solidarity between Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

I also remember months before the historic and transformative March on Washington in August of 1963, Rabbi Heschel emphasized, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to humanity - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” Rabbi Heschel condemned racism as a moral and theological evil that linked Black and Jewish struggles for righteousness, justice, freedom and equality. 

In a speech to the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in 1965 in New York, three years before Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. King proclaimed, “The Negroes are not the only people who have suffered. The Jews went through the horrors of oppression, and more than any other people, the Jewish people understand the depth of tragic suffering. And it has been the Jewish people who have stood beside us in the struggle for freedom."

Both Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel worked closely together to fight against antisemitism and racism. Today my brother Anatoly, we have to strive together to continue this work, to speak out together from our prison cells, and to one day march together, and eventually to triumph together over the evil forces of antisemitism and racism in the Soviet Union, in America, and throughout the world.

In closing, my faith enables me to be optimistic and not pessimistic. Both of us “refusing to serve time” but we are making time to serve the worldwide freedom movement and together to affirm the oneness of our humanity. 

Please forgive the length of this letter. Writing to you is therapeutic and a special blessing from God. 

I pray Anatoly that prison authorities there will permit you to receive this letter. God bless you. The struggle continues. A Luta Continea.

Sincerely,

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

Letter written by Benjamin F. Chavis in McCain North Carolina Prison to Anatoly Shcharansky, imprisoned in a Moscow prison. September 4, 1978.