Originally written and published in 2021

As the Nation and World celebrates the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr today - Westport remembers him, his visit to our town, the arrest of a local rabbi, and the message of peace that can still be felt in Westport 56 years later.

Nine months after he said the words “I Have a Dream” in Washington D.C. and seven months before he would accept his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Westport, off of Coleytown Road, speaking before a crowd of over 600 people at Temple Israel.

The May 22nd, 1964 event was in celebration of the Congregation’s fifth anniversary; Rabbi Byron T. Rubenstein, a notable social justice advocate, invited Dr. King to join his congregation’s shabbat. The Westport Museum for History and Culture described the historic event last week during their Tuesday Treasures virtual talk, saying that King was strongly remembered as telling the crowd that “it is possible to stand up to an unjust system without hate”.

Those were words he would stand by and a relationship he would call on just weeks after his Westport visit, because 20 days after leaving our town, Dr. King was famously arrested for trespass in St. Augustine, Florida during a civil rights movement at the Monson Motor Lodge.

From jail, Dr. King called on New Jersey friend Rabbi Israel Dresner to recruit other rabbis and head to St. Augustine and to join Civil Rights Movement that was gathering momentum. Westport’s Rabbi B. T. Rubenstein answered the call with Dresner and joined the St. Augustine movement, and was subsequently arrested - exactly one week after Dr. King - along with 16 other men; 15 of them rabbis. From the St. Johns County Jail, he co-wrote “Why We Went”, a letter from the men to the world about why they participated in the movement, saying “We came then, not as tourists, but as ones who, perhaps quixotically, thought we could add a bit to the healing process of America.”

Boston University Professor and former Temple Israel member Virginia Sapiro recounted the arrest of Rubenstein on her blog:

As the New York Times described it, on Thursday, the manager of the motel “met the demonstrators outside the restaurant, a few feet from the swimming pool. ‘This is private property and I will have to ask you to leave,’ [he] said. When the demonstrators refused to do so, he began pushing. First he pushed the leaders and one by one he pushed the rabbis. As one rabbi was pushed aside another would step forward to take his place.” White onlookers shouted, already angry because the demonstrators had conducted a prayer service the night before. Martin Luther King, watching from across the street, described “raw police brutality,” including beatings and the use of cattle prods.

One of those rabbis was mine, Rabbi Byron T. Rubenstein, of Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut. My family was very involved in the congregation, and when Rabbi Rubenstein set off for Florida, knowing he might not be back for Shabbat services, he asked some members of the congregation, including my father, to fill in for him, which my dad was glad to do. It seemed obvious to us that the religious and spiritual convictions we talked about so often were not just consistent with the resistance to segregation, but demanded that those who could summon the bravery to act must do so. It was slightly less than 20 years since the liberation of the concentration camps.

The arrests of King and Rubenstein only fortified their own feelings of peace and love for the work they were doing. According to Westport author Sally Allen, Rabbi Rubenstein told Westport's The Town Crier that he was “enthusiastic about the determination of Dr. King.” following his overnight arrest in Florida. Ten years after the arrest, Rubenstein was quoted in Woody Allen’s Westport, Connecticut, saying “‘It was in jail that I came to know the greatness of Dr. King.’”.

During Summer of 2020, Westport experienced social justice movements throughout the downtown and Post Road areas - with thousands converging on the town in support of Black Lives Matter. The movements - which were planned and organized in conjunction with the Town of Westport and other local organizations - were peaceful, and brought the community together; for some it was the first time being with others since the pandemic began in March.

Despite the pandemic, the world remained together - something that Dr. King wanted Westporters to do even back in 1964, telling the crowd at Temple Israel that “because of scientific genius, the world has become geographically one. It must be socially one as well. We must live together or perish.”

Dr. King’s words are just as powerful today as they were in 1964. Modern “scientific genius” allowed our world to become geographically one as children Zoomed their teachers and COVID-19 patients Facetimed family from hospital beds - taking the miles between them and bringing them just inches apart; screen-to-screen.

2020 was the year that community members masked-up, walked together, and demanded racial justice; mere miles away and decades after Dr. King’s speech to Westport community members on remaining peaceful, together, and continuing to fight for justice.

2020 was the year our communities chose to live together, not perish, while standing 6 feet apart.

We remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his visit to Westport, and the message that he left us - one that means just as much today as it did then in 1964.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th, 1929 and was assassinated April 4th, 1968 at the age of 39. The civil rights activist would have been 92 years old on Friday.

Rabbi Byron T. Rubenstein served as a Navy chaplain with the Marines in the Pacific during World War II, and went on lead Temple Israel from 1959 until 1982. He passed away in July of 1990 at the age of 74.