Henna White and Jean Griffith Sandiford first met on the first anniversary of the 1991 Crown Heights riots. They stood at the corner of Utica and President streets in Crown Heights, where 7-year-old Gavin Cato had been accidentally struck and killed by a car driven by a chasidic man, touching off four days of anti-Jewish violence.White, an Orthodox Jew and community activist, was with Charles Posner, then a deputy district attorney in Brooklyn and now a Criminal Court judge. Sandiford, an African American and the mother of Michael Griffith — the victim of an infamous 1986 racial incident in Howard Beach, Queens — was alone.Posner walked over to Sandiford, asking “What are you doing here, Jean?”Her answer was simple: “I thought I could help.”Posner and White were there for the same reason. “A year after the riots, there was a lot of nervous tension in the community,” explains Posner, who had been working that year with Jews and blacks in the community to refute rumors and ease tensions. “People were scared of a repeat of the riots.”Like Sandiford, whose son was chased by a white mob onto a highway, where he was killed by an oncoming car, White had lost to violence someone she loved. Pessa Leah Lapine, a young Jewish wife and mother, was molested and brutally stabbed to death a few months after the riots by a black man who broke into her home. White’s grief at her dear friend’s murder was accompanied by a determination to do whatever she could to eliminate the bigotry and hatred that foster violence.The best way to promote tolerance and understanding, she thought, was “to bring people together, to get them talking.”Mothers to Mothers, a group of Jewish and African-American women, have been talking for six years.While blacks and Jews might live side by side in Crown Heights, White points out, they do not really know each other. She cites, as an example, the closing of streets for large chasidic weddings. “If the black community knew why this was happening, they would not be resentful,” she said.Mothers to Mothers was established to help create this understanding. Three women were present at its first meeting — White, Sandiford and Lynn Posner, an educator and the judge’s wife. The meeting was held in the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, offered by Hynes as “neutral ground,” with ties neither to the black nor the Jewish communities.It was decided to limit the group to women, Lynn Posner says, “because women have a vested interest in a safe and caring community. We wanted the women to feel uninhibited, to make it comfortable for them to talk freely.”Charles Posner adds: “Men posture; women don’t. Women want to have the feeling of security.”The group still holds its monthly meetings in that same conference room. White is now a member of Hynes’ staff, serving as a liaison to the Jewish community, which had been part of Posner’s responsibility as deputy district attorney.And, Posner emphasizes, membership is still restricted to women. “I do show up at the meetings,” he says. “I bring in the refreshments, the snacks and soft drinks, and then I leave.”He is very much a presence, of course, at the group’s annual barbecue, which was held recently in the Posner backyard in Flatbush. The atmosphere was casual. The fragrance of sizzling frankfurters mixed with the buzz of conversation punctuated by laughter.What started as a group of six — three Jews recruited by White and three African Americans recruited by Sandiford — has grown to about 20. Not all of the Jews are chasidic, White says, although the base was and continues to be women from the Crown Heights area, chasidic and black, who were most affected by the riots. Most who began with the group remain active.For four years, Mothers to Mothers operated in strict privacy. “It was a group decision,” White says. “We felt that once we got the press involved, people would not feel able to talk freely.”The group changed its mind following the trial of Lemrick Nelson Jr., who was acquitted of murdering a chasidic student during the riots but was convicted subsequently on federal civil rights charges. Legal issues surrounding the trial, including the question of whether the second trial constituted a double jeopardy prosecution, polarized members of both communities.“Such negative things were being said about Crown Heights,” White recalls. “We felt it was important to say there is growth. This little group is showing that the Jewish and the African-American communities can get along.”Since going public, the achievements scored by the “little group” have received major recognition. In 1997 it was named as one of four groups to receive the Anti-Defamation League’s first Heroes Against Hate award. Mothers to Mothers was honored again this year by Brooklyn Borough president Howard Golden, receiving a Brooklyn Unity Award at the 11th annual ceremony at Borough Hall.The Rev. Mayella Morgan Rogers confides that when she was told about Mothers to Mothers by Charles Posner, she was reluctant to join because White hails from South Africa. Rev. Rogers wanted nothing to do with a native of that bigoted land, she said.She changed her mind about White almost immediately after meeting her, however. “I just fell in love with her,” Rev. Rogers recalls. “I enjoy the group. It gives us the chance to learn about each other as women. We share a lot. We have a lot in common.”Breaking down misconceptions, moving away from stereotypes, has been one of the major accomplishments of Mothers to Mothers, Lynn Posner and White believe.Some sessions were tough, Posner says, in particular one meeting to which White brought a chasidic woman who told the group about cowering on the floor with her children while bricks flew through her windows during the Crown Heights riots. Some of the members were upset by her narrative, and arguments broke out. Calm was restored when Sandiford reminded them that “we have to get along.”“Jean is a remarkable woman,” White says. “If she has no hatred after what she has been through, how can we?”Lynn Posner remarks on the ease with which the women did move away from the riots. “We had to work through it, and we found that we could,” she says. “We had so many other topics we wanted to talk about.”These included explanations by each group of its religious and cultural traditions, discussions of such common concerns as affordable childcare and health care, the importance of a good education for their children’s future.“The goals we thought were unattainable were attainable,” Posner says.White and Lynn Posner both say they are surprised the group has lasted this long. “I never thought it would,” White admits. “We just wanted the women to get together and talk.”White believes this dialogue is the reason Mothers to Mothers remains in existence. “We give hope it can happen,” she says, “that Jews and African Americans can sit down tighter and find common ground while keeping our religion and tradition.”Ann Lancaster, with the group for five years, nods in agreement, then loops an arm across White’s shoulders.“We have become good friends,” she says.
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