Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr.is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is his eldest son. Jackson was also the host of Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth8 October 1941
CountryUnited States of America
That's just like America. It's made up of lots of different people. We're all different colors, different ages, we do different jobs -- but it takes all of us black people, white people, brown people, men and women, young and old, working in the factories, working in the fields, working in offices, working in stores -- it takes a lot of different kinds of people to get the job done for America.
You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be responsible for getting up.
The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.
It is in struggle and service with our brothers and sisters, individually and collectively, that we find the meaning of life.
Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.
Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.
Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.
If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.
No one wants to see self-destructive riots because there's no future in riots.
People like to say don't abort, adopt. But I'm saying don't strip, scholarship.
If you and I got on an airplane, you're going to L.A., Los Angeles, and I'm going to Senegal, we get there about the same time. The world is just that small. So a world that is so tightly bound by science and technology and now Internet and the web page, that world is too small for bullies. It has no room in that world for arrogance.
Coming into World War II, we were seen as a conquering hero for beleaguered people, we are now seen as invader, an occupier. And what that is saying is we have more might than right, so we kind of have a kind of moral deficit disorder. And that's why a leader must lift us back to the higher ground, because at the end of the day what makes you strong is that you are believable, that as significant as might is, ultimately right is even stronger than might.
Iraq will drive American agenda for a long time because Iraq policy has so damaged America in the Middle East region, left us isolated. We are there now by brute strength, we are not there because we are desired.