In September, those efforts suffered a sharp setback when
both the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, president of the South-
ern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Reverend Jesse
L. Jackson, head of People United to Save Humanity
(PUSH), separately traveled to the Middle East and met
with several Arab leaders, including Yasir Arafat, the head of
the PLO. During their meeting, Lowery and his SCLC dele-
gation invited Arafat to attend conferences they said they
were arranging in the United States, and at the end of their
meeting led in the singing of the civil rights anthem, “We
Shall Overcome.” Jackson met with Arafat and told reporters
covering the trip that he hoped to mediate a discussion of the
conflict involving the PLO, the Carter administration, and
Israeli government officials.

I decided then that I had to speak out forcefully against

such misguided behavior; and the invitation to address the
National Conference of Catholic Charities, which resulted in
this speech, provided the perfect forum. First, I felt a respon-
sibility to condemn ill-considered rhetorical support for ter-
rorist groups that had murdered innocent civilians because
such behavior was anathema to the nonviolent moral princi-
ples of the civil rights movement. Second, I also wanted to
point out that these flirtations diverted resources and atten-
tion from an economic crisis that was ravaging blacks, espe-
cially the “vital survival issues” immediately affecting the
black poor. I was eager to assert that rather than declarations
of independence, what black Americans and America as a

72

VERNON E. JORDAN, JR.

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