The Kraft Foundation launched a powerful Super Bowl ad featuring Dr. Clarence B. Jones
It’s been nearly a year since Robert Kraft announced his Foundation to Fight Anti-Semitism (FCAS), and now the New England Patriots owner is reflecting on the work his foundation has done.
Kraft, 82, initially invested $25 million in a multifaceted campaign against anti-Semitism.
Earlier this month, FCAS aired a commercial during the 2024 Super Bowl featuring Dr. Clarence B. Jones, known for his speechwriting work with Martin Luther King Jr.
The 30-second spot from FCAS opens with Jones, 82, saying: “Sometimes I imagine what I would write for my dear friend Martin today. I would remind people that all hatred thrives on one thing – silence,” and goes on to encourage viewers to “speak up “against all forms of hatred.
Jones’ participation in the video meant a lot to Kraft, the NFL owner tells PEOPLE. “I’ve always admired Martin Luther King Jr. as a man. I like people who can catch people talking, and he had a way of speaking that was very special. He could connect with people.”
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Kraft continues: “And then Dr. Jones was his consigliere, his speech writer, and he is a man of great depth and a lover of humanity. I had the privilege of spending three and a half hours with him in a private setting.”
“We need more people like Martin Luther King and Clarence Jones, people who are open to every way people think, good people who build bridges,” Kraft says. “There is so much hate going on in the world. When we are born, no one is born with hate. It is learned and taught, and we have to stop it.”
Last spring, Kraft and his wife, Dana Blumberg, led the March of the Living in Poland, where 20,000 people walked among the remains of concentration camps there.
“I brought Meek Mill, who’s a friend, because I wanted him to see what happened there years ago, and he came with us when we led this march. And when he went through Auschwitz, he saw 46,000 women’s scalps piled into a room , piled high with children’s shoes, came to me with tears in his eyes,” says Kraft.
Meek Mill and Robert Kraft. Kevin Mazur/Getty
The Patriots owner says he “created the foundation to fight Jew-hatred and all other hate,” and he wanted it to be driven by “actionable data” and “something that appeals to the empathy that I believe all human beings have,” he says.
The foundation conducted a study with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to better understand how Americans are educated through the media.
“We saw from our last TV ad that we did in April and May, we reached between 130 and 150 million adults, seven to 10 times, and our ad changed the way people think,” says Kraft.
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“We raised from 20% of the population to 40%, that they must stand up and not be silent, and help their brothers or sisters in need. But there is still a long way to go.”
In addition to fighting hate, Kraft says the main goal of this initiative is to “educate” Americans. “Social media has become such a powerful tool and weapon that young people are not getting the right facts because there are so many falsehoods on social media and it has such wide coverage.”
“So we felt that going to the biggest TV event in America, the only time you can reach probably several hundred million people, when it’s all said and done, with this message of empathy and opposing all hate should be at the Super Bowl. So, very It’s expensive to get 30 seconds, but hopefully it will be a good return on investment.”
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Source: HIS Education