Leon Uris: A God In Ruins

Quinn’s calm calmed them all. No chinks in the armor, no wringing hands, no shouts to God. He spoke softly as the news reached him and gave quick, thoughtful responses.

“Nebraska has just called up the Guard,” Greer said.

“I didn’t think we were doing that well in Nebraska. How many call-ups?”

“Nine states, six states pending. Twenty-eight states report no rioting activity .. . but, Jesus, if the President doesn’t issue an order .. . how long?”

A car bomber plunged into the plate-glass window of Feldman Toyota on the auto mile of San Francisco.

A gunman entered the Lew Singer Deli on lower Broadway and sprayed the place with automatic fire. Six are known dead, twenty wounded.

A bonfire of books from the Judaica sections of the Jacksonville Library licked the sky while encircling neo-Nazis saluted and chanted.

Ketchum, Idaho, Bank hit by a dozen militia. Half million dollars taken. One dead.

As the night settled in, the question at hand was the upcoming day.

Bitter O’Connell haters watched how the authorities were responding to see what situations would be ripe for daylight exploiting.

And the governors and mayors watched, to use their forces gingerly and not get into a situation of putting a thousand of their citizens against their own arms.

And the sound of Kristallnachtl

The Reverend Amos Johnson was the surviving icon of the early civil rights movement. He had risen to challenge for the presidency twice in primaries and walked off with eighteen percent of the vote.

His personal ambitions chilled by the white establishment, Amos became a dynamic wellspring of hope for his people and gathered in a large Hispanic following as well.

There was a time of separation between a liberal Jewish activism and the black community. Some African American leaders scolded their former allies as pious do-gooders looking down with pity on their black brothers.

Into this mix crept the inevitable ancient tentacles of anti Semitism. The slum lord, Jewish wealth, Jewish power, now grated on those downtrodden ghetto dwellers.

Amos Johnson himself took the view that the Jews were patronizing them without either deep love or conviction.

Attempts to heal a widening rift by covering the issues with a Band-Aid did not help.

The Black Muslim movement fanned a constantly smoldering pall of anti-Semitism. The Jew is the enemy!

The Reverend Amos Johnson had worked closely with too many Jewish politicians and leaders not to realize that the two communities were inexorably bound together by tragedies.

The Jews, as a people, had reached many of their goals. This angered some and enraged other blacks whose gains came slower and with more pain.

A cycle emerged of black for the sake of black. Reverend Amos Johnson always gave a wide berth to the hate teachings of the Muslim Nation. Despite his high regard in the country, Reverend Amos never publicly rebuked them on any issue.

It was not as though the history, leadership, and white citizens deserved better. They had wrought a system of injustice that was ending in black-white polarization. Black juries proved as prejudiced as white juries had always proved.

The firebrand days were behind Johnson, and three of his children, two of them daughters, were members of Congress. They badgered him constantly to lead the African American community out of perpetual victimhood.

As soon as the riots started, his children rushed to his home, held hands, and prayed for guidance. Outside, a crowd of believers started numbering in the thousands, backing up clear to both street corners.

The media included black cable TV channels and a black press.

“Now hear me!” Amos began.

“We hear you,” was the response.

“We have been driven to the wall time and time again throughout our tragic history in this nation. We are in pain!”

“Pain!”

“We are in agony! We still await our walk in the sun!.”

“You tell us, Reverend!”

“Slowly, slowly, always too slowly we have crawled the crawl, feeding on crumbs of this wealthy gate society. We yet await our walk into the sun!”

“Hallelujah!”

Tonight! “Amos cried.

“Tonight!” was responded.

“We will play the role given us by Yahweh to be full Americans. We

will set aside the injustices for the moment, and we will be Americans

first! We who have suffered the terror of lynchings and dogs and nightsticks and hate-filled policemen .. . we who suffered all this say: we will not be used as monsters to bring down another American community!”

“Amen!”

“Do not let the forces of evil in and out of our community let us be used to do unto another what has been done to us! No matter what our personal experiences with Jews, we just set them aside, for Yahweh has commanded us to save our brothers!”

Silence swept over them.

“We who have been denied the right of full citizenship will not be used to deny that right to others. Let no black man stain himself with the blood of a Jew, because, if the carnage is not stopped, the black man and woman will become the next target. America must exist with all its little communities intact, or it will not exist at all. We must now set our own grievances aside because tonight we are Americans!”

Amos turned away from the bank of microphones into the embrace of his wife and children.

“You said the right thing, Daddy,” his daughter told him.

“The hate is killing us,” Amos whispered.

Milwaukee was quiet. The skin heads of Milwaukee looked time and again for police on the streets. There were none. They grew bolder. A call went out on their web site for an immediate gathering.

Sixty bald heads swathed in black leather and adorned with swastikas

marched toward the Beth El Synagogue singing one of the good old black

shirt songs.

When Jewish blood is dripping from our daggers .. .

breaking news breaking news breaking news

“This is Charlotte Cassidy, CBS, Memphis. Southern Grand Dragon Potter Wesley has called for a four-state convergence of the Klan at Memphis to parade at daybreak. Mr. Wesley! Sir! May I have a few words with you?”

a-\ t yy

No.

“How many klaverns do you think can make it to Memphis by daylight?”

“What did you hear?” he growled.

“Upward of a thousand Klansmen.”

“I won’t dispute that, and while we’re at it, let me tell you

something. CBS is just another Jew network.”

“I understand that some of your people will be carrying weapons—“

“This is a peaceful march. The KKK does not believe in violence against niggers or kikes. Now, if some folks want to bring along a weapon to defend themselves, ain’t much I can do about that.”

“The KKK show of force,” Charlotte said, “will not be disturbed as long as it remains un destructive says the chief of police. However, a survey of college campuses in the vicinity indicates that the Klan will run head-on into growing ranks of students.”

breaking news breaking news breaking news

San Francisco.

Eric Cardinal Mueller, a dean and often spokesman, took his seat as the cameras honed in on him and the commentator spoke, softly giving the priest’s background.

“It is the never-ending mission of the Church to find truth and speak truth even to the point of admitting Church wrongdoing in the past. No church can survive on lies. Since World War Two our foundations have been rocked by the passive role of the Vatican during the Holocaust. In this search for truth, we are now investigating our role in the Spanish Inquisition.