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
The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.
The laws are stacked for the wealthy.
The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.
The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president.
So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent.
You know, people'd always ask 'Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?' They never seen the house I'm running from.
People internalize, from the jail to student loan debt, to credit card debt, to unemployment to the whole collective. It manifests itself in many ways, in people's home lives, domestic stuff.
For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.
My very first recollection of life on earth was waking up in bed with my mother, and she was showing me a picture of my father, Charles Jackson, with a group of soldiers.
Many have fought for and even lost their lives to end segregation, to win the right to vote. It disappoints me to now have to cajole people to register and to vote.
It is a historical error for those who were not there to just refer to August 28th as 'I Have a Dream' speech day. That is a real disservice to those who were there. It was a sad day. It was not a celebration environment.
I think reconciliation is Obama's goal - but the fight with the Republicans is like a fight with pit bulls, they never let go. Even worse, now the Republicans feel they can keep pushing and he will keep giving. They have not seen a stiff resistance on his part.
I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true.
Those who write the editorials and those who write the columns, they simply are unaccountable. They're free to impose their cultural politics in the name of freedom of the press.