A Palestine Festival of Literature Event: “But We Must Speak: On Palestine & The Mandates of Conscience”

Union Theological Seminary in NYC has a long history of working for social justice. A Palestine Festival of Literature event, “But We Must Speak,” couldn’t find a venue in NYC because the event was political, and the voices were at odds with U.S policy. Union gave the group space and was supportive of the event. The event includes poetry and a discussion moderated by Michelle Alexander who wrote The New Jim Crow and included Ta-Nehisi Coates—author of Between the World and Me and Rashid Khalidi a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. There were also speeches by activists including a representative from Jewish Voice For Peace. The program ends with a reading from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech against the war in Viet Nam (which had been scheduled for Union’s chapel, but the crowd was too big—MLK gave the speech at Riverside Church across the street from Union). The program is both moving and informative.