WASHINGTON (AP) -- A rabbi who went to jail for protesting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says he's proud of the significant role Jews played in the American civil rights struggle.

Rabbi Israel Dresner, who at the time led a small congregation
in New Jersey, was among King contemporaries who spoke at Sunday's dedication of the King memorial on the National Mall. Dresner, known for his frequent arrests for civil disobedience, took part in the 1960's Freedom Rides and later, the march from Selma to
Montgomery, Ala.

In a speech at the dedication ceremony, Dresner called King a prophet "who was able to bring down the American walls of Jericho, the walls of segregation and Jim Crow."

Dresner credited King's "genius" in not only theology, but politics and economics. Dresner noted that King knew that it would be impossible for a small racial minority to successfully battle for equality without the support of whites and people of all faiths.

Dresner said Jews represented only about 4 percent of the white
population at the time but represented 50 percent of the whites who
were arrested in various campaigns. He also recalled that two of the three victims slain by the Klan in Philadelphia, Miss., were Jewish.

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