Civil Rights Advocacy
In addition to his work with the ADL Zakim was co-founder of A World of Difference Institute, an anti-bias educational project formed in Boston in 1986. The project has been adapted in twenty-nine other cities and six counties.
Lenny Zakim and the Rev. Charles Stith founded an annual Black-Jewish Seder in Boston which inspired many interfaith Seders with Catholic, Protestant and Jewish participants in Boston and nationally. At the time of his death it was the largest black-Jewish seder in the US. He also "used his political connections and friendships with black ministers, Roman Catholic leaders and sports celebrities to establish community organizations and public-service events, including the 12,000-member Team Harmony antiracism rally for teenagers," the New York Times said in its obituary.
During the last years of his life, as he struggled with myeloma, he founded The Lenny Zakim Fund to fight poverty and racism in Boston. Shortly before his death, he organized a Catholic-Jewish pilgrimage to Rome with his friend Cardinal Bernard Law, where he had an audience with Pope John Paul II, prompting the New Jersey native to say: "I've had my picture taken with the Pope, Bruce Springsteen and the Dalai Lama. Now I've got to get the three of them together."
Read more about this topic: Leonard P. Zakim
Famous quotes containing the words civil rights, civil and/or rights:
“Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.”
—Dick Gregory (b. 1932)
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“I argued that the chastity of women was of much more consequence than that of men, as the property and rights of families depend upon it.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)