This talk was given by John Small at the Charlotte Celebration of Mahatma Gandhi’s 155 Birthday in Uptown Charlotte.
What an honor it is to be here at this birthday celebration marking the 155th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth.
My name is John Small and I come to you representing the Jewish Community and representing the Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center at Queens University of Charlotte. Rabbi Judy Schindler sends her greetings and gratitude for all that your community does to make Charlotte better, brighter, and more beautiful.
Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings of non-violence inspire us all. That is why I am here.
I want to let you know about a project that Charlotte’s Jewish Community and Charlotte’s Black Community have been working on and to let you know how excited we are that all of you as an Asian-American Community are interested in this effort, too.
Our vision is to create a Charlotte Multicultural Memorial Project – revitalizing the Martin Luther King Statue and the Holocaust Memorial in Marshall Park and connecting them educationally with this Gandhi memorial. We seek to create a type of memorial garden to which the community, students, and tourists can come and learn about these most critical personalities and events in history.
We aim to add kiosks with educational materials related to each memorial that highlight the Charlotte community’s diversity and celebrate the richness of our multicultural history. The juxtaposition of the three memorials will serve as a powerful and thought-provoking tool to educate visitors to the memorials about the ramifications of complacency in the face of hate.
We seek to highlight your Asian American community and all you have to offer. We seek to highlight Gandhi’s world changing teachings from which we all need to learn.
When it comes to Holocaust memory in Charlotte, so many of our community’s Holocaust survivors have died. Dr. Susan Cernyak-Spatz, who survived Auschwitz and had a long career in Charlotte as a Holocaust scholar in our Queen City, sadly passed away in 2019. She taught generations. Susan was very unhappy with the long-neglected Holocaust Memorial we have in Marshall Park and yearned for a more respectable Holocaust memorial. She said of the current memorial, “To have it like that is awful. This is not a place where anybody will go to. It’s hidden in a place where nobody ever goes.”
“I lived the Holocaust,” Dr. Cernyak-Spatz said, “and it’s important to me that people don’t forget.”
Gandhi said, “”The future depends on what you do today.”
MLK said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
And Elie Wiesel, a most esteemed Holocaust survivor, said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
We believe these three memorials together will inspire Charlotte students and visitors of every age to learn, to love, to care for each other and to build a safer, more inclusive community that values all human beings. For the tomorrow that all of us share, depends on our actions today.
Thank you for allowing me to share in this moving celebration.
We are celebrating our sabbath so I share our greeting for this day: Shabbat Shalom – we wish you a Sabbath of Peace
Namaste – the light in me acknowledges the bright light in you.
