But share and tell me your memory Why does it
matter to you? I want to hear your story, your
point of view Tell me what happened to you back
to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features
folks from all walks of life telling us one true
childhood story and how that event, that experience
has impacted who they are as an adult. Today
I have with my guest, Rabbi Alan Sesher. I've
known the rabbi for probably 20 years or so,
but he's been a minister for a lot longer than
that. Rabbi was ordained in 1962. He served pulpits
in New York, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Chicago,
as well as in Montana. The rabbi has worked for
social justice his whole life. He is the last
survivor of 16 rabbis who were arrested in 1964
in St. Augustine. Welcome to the show, Rabbi
Alan Sessions. Thank you, Jay. That was my mother
wrote that intro, right? Now, Rabbi, I've known
you for probably 20 some years due to our relationship
at the family school at Old St. Pat's. But your
experience as a rabbi, as a social justice advocate,
goes back a lot longer than that. I'm ready and
happy to hear your story, although I know a little
bit about it and I think it's somewhat sad. But
are you ready to tell your childhood story? Oh,
boy, am I. Let's do it. Let me set the scene
first, because the place is critical to the action
itself. I was raised in Butler, Pennsylvania,
nowadays very famous for the attempted assassination
of the president. Butler, Pennsylvania was a
very tough, anti -Semitic town. It was a lot
of steelworkers and farmers. My parents loved
the town. I hated it. I couldn't wait to get
out of the town. I faced anti -Semitism in that
town for as long as I can remember. When I was
a little kid, four years old, five years old,
I was getting brick bats thrown at me, stuff
thrown at me with Jew bastard on the other side
of the rock. and many a time I had to run home
with a busted open head. An incident way back
then, I was 10 years old, did not take place
in Butler. It took place in Meadville, Pennsylvania,
a similar town to Butler. My parents and I summered
at Coneyet Lake, Pennsylvania, a resort area
up north, north. Butler's in almost to the Ohio
border. And we summered every summer. And one
day during that time at 10 years old, I got up
in the morning and had terrible pains in my gut,
but terrible. And my mother, my father was back
in Butler, but my mother was there and we jumped
in the car and raced to the nearest hospital,
Meanville, Pennsylvania. We pulled into St. Joe's
Hospital or St. Andrew's Hospital. It doesn't
matter, but a Catholic hospital. And what I was
told was there was no doctor at the hospital,
no doctor who could treat me. You'll have to
go to the public hospital down the street. It
was clear to the two of us at that time that
they were saying we don't treat Jews. That was
a heavy, heavy experience. All right, now let's
fast forward to high school. Until my senior
year, I was the only Jew in my class, period.
I was it. In the town, there were different groups
of people. There were the farmer's kids, there
were the steelworker's kids, there were the townie's
kids, and I certainly was a townie kid. but not
complete. For the guys in the town, that was
all right. I don't think they even bothered with
my being Jewish. But the females were a whole
different story. I dated a lovely for a while
until one day she came to me and said she couldn't
date me anymore. Why not? Well, I can't date
you because Jews are drunks. Why are Jews drunks?
Because they drink wine on Friday night. And
obviously if they drink wine on Friday night,
they're drinking all the other nights. I didn't
know enough to tell her about Jesus and the wine
and the fishes and so on, but she couldn't date
me. And that was the case. It was rare that I
could have a local date. They were told. that
they were not permitted to date me except in
my senior year. One lovely lady said, I'm not
going along with that. There was a big, a fancy
dance for the Rainbow Girls, which was a Masonic
girl. There was a fancy formal dance every year
to which I was never invited. Senior year, she
said, to hell with that. You're my date. All
right. All that is background. Now let me tell
you the incident that was to lead to the incident.
I was not an athlete as a kid. Oh, I played around
with athletes and played a little bit of basketball
and had a travel team that I managed and ran,
but I was not an athlete, but I decided I could
be an athlete. I didn't play football. I tried
out and was lousy. Didn't play football, didn't
play basketball for the high school team, didn't
do swimming. But the one thing that the high
school did that I knew I could manage was the
golf team. It was a five man golf team. As a
kid, I was a pretty good golfer. Certainly not
as good as the kid golfers today, but I was a
good golfer in the low eighties and maybe on
occasion in the seventies, but I was a good golfer
sophomore year. I was number six on a five man
team, which made me first alternate, but I never
got to play the doggone guys. were good and good.
And I never got the play. I think I traveled
to one meet, but I never got the play. Between
sophomore and junior year, I improved my golf
enormously. My father was in the wholesale food
business and we lived upstairs from his warehouse.
I established a net in the warehouse and I would
come down almost nightly to practice and I got
better. It's now junior year and there's an announcement
in the school announcing that said candidates
for the golf team please show up at the coach's
office to arrange for physicals. The coach was
a woman Uh, she was the chemistry teacher and
I was the first guy at her door and she answers
the door and conversation went almost exactly
like this. Oh, Alan, I've been meaning to tell
you we can only have five players this year,
but Ms. Critchlow, you know, and I know that
I'm due to be at least number three and maybe
I could challenge to be number two. No, Alan,
we're only allowed five players this year. But
Miss Critchlow, I can be one of those players.
No, Alan, we're only allowed five players. I'm
sorry about that. Well, the light turns on in
my head that Miss Critchlow was trying to say
to me, the members of the country club have told
me no Jews allowed. The country club was restricted.
And I was devastated. This was my chance to become
a high school hero. I never made it. OK, we unfortunately
we didn't appeal to the school board. But the
experience was indelible. Just absolutely indelible,
and it controlled my life. It still controls
my life where I can. tell this story without
taking a beat, because I don't say I repeat it
every morning while lying in bed, but I know
the experience and I know it well. And I guess
that pushed me in those days to say this is unacceptable,
that somebody should be treated third class,
fourth class. And so from then on in that peppered
my experience in civil rights so that it has
meant the rest of my life seeing to it that nobody
has to face what I did as a kid. To me as a kid,
that was horrible. I'll tell you, because this
podcast is not determined by the FCC, a small
bit that I did. My 60th birthday, I decided I
want to go back to Butler. I was living at that
point here in Chicago and I decided I want to
go back to Butler and experience, experience
the barber and the grade school and the YMCA,
the places that I hung out at and So I decided
there was something important for me to do. So
I drove out to the country club, which was about
five or six miles outside of town. But I drove
out to the country club and the country club
at this point, by the way, was integrated. They
needed Jewish money, but the country club was
integrated. I walked. onto the golf course and
I pissed on the 18th green. It was just my way
of expression to the wonderful people that had
denied me that. You know, some like 45 years
earlier for the rest of my life since that experience
in high school has been fighting pretty hard
to see to it. Nobody has that experience again.
Now, it's not the case. It's not the case. It's
not the case. Look at anti -Semitism today and
the experience of it all. Look at anti -racist
or racist experience today. It's not the case.
But if I can just be a little bit of help, I'm
91 years old, but I'm still at it. At least my
head's in good shape. Even if my body's good
and old. So, Jay, I think that's the experience.
I don't know how long that took. Well said. And
I'm sorry that you went through all that. The
country club was the place that your team must
have been practicing or played their games. Is
that right? That's both clarification. They practice
at the country club and their matches were off
the time like any other athlete half the time
at the country club. Well, you've sort of already
answered the question I was going to ask you,
which is how that experience has impacted your
life, because I think subsequently you've already
said that you sort of dedicated your life to
fighting anti -Semitism and the larger issues
of exclusion that involves race and other elements
of human society. You want to add anything to
that, how it's impacted your life now? I'm thinking
as you're talking to me of a small example, okay?
I was jailed along with 16 other, 15 other rabbis.
I was jailed with 15 other rabbis and a layman
at a demonstration in June of 1964 in St. Augustine,
Florida. We came at the request of Martin Luther
King. By the way, I was jailed twice. I was jailed
in Albany, Georgia in 1962 and jailed in 64 in
St. Augustine, Florida. And what was the impetus?
The impetus was that the blacks of the community
were third grade. And as an example, the blacks
were not permitted to use sections of the beach
in St. Augustine. just not permitted. And when
we, after this experience, when we went back
for the 50th anniversary, which was in 2014,
and at that point there were only six members
of that team still alive. When we went back,
I went to the beach, I wanted to see what had
happened. And there was a black fellow with his
daughter sitting on the beach. And I walked up
to him and I said, do you know how it happens?
Did you're here? And he had no idea. So I spent
a few minutes with him telling him, but to see
to it that that fellow had access to everything
was absolutely the same thing as my having access
to the high school golf team. Same, same story.
He was just black. The Jewish community in St.
Augustine is different. They're semi, I guess,
I can't say semi integrated. They're they're
more or less integrated. OK, but here's this
fellow and the experience in St. Augustine was
so memorable that can I tell a little bit of
this story? Does it fit? Well, we got about three
minutes, so. Oh, all right. The experience in
St. Augustine, Florida, was responsible for President
Johnson pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He
was so moved by what had happened with us that
he pushed it. And a short time after we were
there, the Civil Rights Act. I'm really proud
that I had a little touch of history to be proud
of. Well, you've done a lot, Alan. I know that.
And, you know, we're not going to be able to
get into the interfaith discussion today, which
is where I met you at, at the old St. Pat's.
We don't have time for that, but I do want to
thank you as a fellow human being. Someone that
you have also ministered to. Thank you for your
leadership in terms of social justice. I think
that it's really, really important that there
are men and women and people who stick their
necks out and say this isn't right. And I'm glad
you were one of those. People back in the 60s
and 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s all left it today. And
you keep doing it. So I appreciate that. And
the world does too, even if we don't say it enough.
So thank you for coming on the show, Rabbi Alan
Sesscher. I loved it, Jay. Thank you for having
me. All right. Well, that's our show. We did
it. We did it. Thank you, Alan. I told you I
couldn't say my name in less than 20 minutes.
I'd like to thank our sponsors, Sidelining Publishing,
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there and try not to hurt anybody.