E-mail a friendRev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
airdate June 6, 2007
A longtime civil rights and political activist, Jesse Jackson Sr. was an assistant to Martin Luther King, Jr. during the '60s movement. He's the founder of the nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, has written two books and launched the Wall Street Project, to open access to capital for women and minorities. He's also a former presidential candidate, who maintains his involvement in the process, leading voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns, and has often been an unofficial U.S. envoy on diplomatic missions.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Reverend Jesse Jackson back to this program. This week in Chicago, he's spearheading the annual Rainbow Push Coalition conference, which has focused much of its attention this year to post-Katrina New Orleans and the larger issue of poverty in America. Reverend Jackson joins us tonight from Chicago. Reverend, as always, nice to see you, sir.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.: Good to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Tell me - I don't ask this question out of any naïveté, but why the theme for this year's conference around this notion of the lack of rebuilding of New Orleans around Hurricane Katrina?
Jackson: In part because Katrina's not just only New Orleans; it is a metaphor for abandoned urban America. Across the nation is New Orleans, Newark, L.A., jobs and capital going out, guns and drugs coming in, taxes up, services up, first class jails, second class schools. That is today's, in fact, urban policy, which amounts, Tavis, to an undeclared urban crisis that is a state of emergency.
More specifically in New Orleans, it is a federal crisis. It was not the storm that put the people down, it was the levee. The federal levee, in fact, broke. And that was a crisis and rescue relocation and reconstruction. The fact that the federal government should have a tsar whose sole job it is to be part of helping people reclaim the land, declare a state of emergency so you do not have a freefall free market, and allow people to come back home.
You can vote from Detroit and New York to Baghdad, but you can't vote from Atlanta or Houston back to New Orleans. What's up with that? That the monies went from New York to Albany - Washington to Albany down to New York, they've gone from Washington to Baton Rouge and not to New Orleans. And so people are being literally starved out. There must be some commitment to reconstruction.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact that in this campaign for the White House, to date, at least - as you know, I'm honored to be moderating one of the presidential forums June 28th live in prime time here on PBS, and I know it's going to come up there. But to date, there's not been the kind of focus on an urban agenda. There's not been the kind of conversation about poverty in America in any of these presidential debates thus far. What do you make of that?
Jackson: I think it's not a good thing. I think they've had at least two opportunities to discuss it. For example, in Selma, there was a discussion about back in the day when it was dangerous and bloody, but ignoring the fact the two elections were determined by Voter Rights Act not being enforced in 2000, 2004, which was the promise of Selma.
In fact, you can vote from jail in Vermont and Maine, but you can't vote once you get out of jail, say, from Alabama. A chance to discuss the voting rights crisis was missed there, it seems to me. And second, there was a debate in South Carolina, a state that 35 percent Black, prisons 80 percent Black. They've arrested 110,000 Blacks a year over the last six years.
The number one industry in that state - the number one industry is no longer textiles as it was when I grew up there. It's the jail industrial complex for profit. Hundred and ten thousand arrests a year is 110,000 calls to lawyers, bailiffs, and to court appearances. Thirty-four state prisons and one state college. Real poverty, real polarization based upon government policy.
I think that a chance was missed, and I hope in the future debates the folks not be on just who is running, but what is the agenda. Not on how much money they raise, but how much issues have they raised? Issues that matter. Another thing about urban policy, jobs out, and drugs and guns in, and now legalizing semiautomatic weapons. There's a lot to talk about, but that's the heavy lifting that must take place.
Tavis: You ran, of course, in '84 and '88. I guess the question is whether or not you can get elected telling the truth about those issues; even talking about those issues. Does that get you elected? Does that win the primaries?
Jackson: Well, Lincoln won talking about a more perfect union. He took a big theme that had healing within it, but it was controversial. Lyndon Johnson talked about the great society, trying to uplift those stuck at the bottom. And short of the Vietnam debacle, the great society was the bigger vision. Even Kennedy talked about the profiles in courage.
You've got to have a big theme, a theme that makes real sense and that inherent in that theme must be some commitment to racial justice, gender equality, worker's rights, education for our children and affordable prices, and end the conflict in the world without so much war.
Tavis: Anybody in this - I know that at least I have not seen you out publicly as yet campaigning for anyone in particular, so I'm afraid to ask whether or not you're supporting any - not afraid, but are you supporting anyone in particular, and what do you make overall of the Democratic field?
Jackson: Well, Barack has my vote as a favorite son, but I'm not - he didn't ask for my vote. I offered it as a generous thing. When I ran in '88 the second time and we won Michigan and Paul Simon from Illinois would not give me his support, he put his campaign on suspension, I thought that was most unfair. And then in New York, 'cause we were ahead, they convinced Gore to pull out so (unintelligible) would have a head-up campaign.
The Democrats closed in on me 'cause we could have won if we had won New York. So I'm sensitive to that kind of shenanigan that went on at that time, and I would not want to be a part of such at this time. But I'm concerned that in the campaign, once you get beyond the novelty of a Black, Latino, and a woman, what is the agenda?
Will it in fact address not just ending the war in Iraq but ending poverty at home? We must address the fact that 51 million Americans have no health insurance. What is your plan on affordable housing? You're funding education now on the state education by the property tax base. It just guarantees second-class education and first-class (unintelligible).
Tavis: But you're -
Jackson: I want to hear some of these themes.
Tavis: I hear you, and I agree with you. Your being in the race, just your being there, to say nothing of what you had to say, which was a whole lot, but your being in the race in '84 and '88 forced those issues to be addressed. How do they get addressed now, 20 years after the fact, without somebody in the race forcing that conversation?
Jackson: Well, it was not just my presence. Also, I forced the issue of free Mandela when no one wanted to touch it. I forced the issue of a new Middle East policy; let's talk policy rather than no talk policy. I forced the issue of the absurdity of locking folk out who come in from Haiti (unintelligible) for them to come from Cuba.
At some point, you must use that opening statement time and that free time to put forth an agenda that has healing power for your base.
Tavis: I just read somewhere that you were headed to London to give a speech on this the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the European slave trade. Tell me about that speech and what you hope to say there.
Jackson: Well it's a big deal. Slavery ended legally in 1807 in Britain. The Wilberforce was the big force there. It's the 200th anniversary of it, and there's a big celebration of it in Britain as they reassess where they were then and 200 years later. Of course, 1807 Britain, 1865 the U.S. Apology is not enough. There must be some repair for damage done, because the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow are continuous.
And so that must be, if there's going to be healing, we got to take the glass (unintelligible). One thing we must (unintelligible) beyond freedom, our mission must be equality and parenting and access to capital, industry, technology, and education. I think those are the abiding themes of our struggle, Tavis, at this time.
Tavis: For African Americans who are watching this race right now, have a chance to involve themselves in the campaign this year, what's your advice to them specifically to look out for, to listen for, to be on the alert for between now and Election Day?
Jackson: I think the presence of Iraq says that for young Americans that there's nothing we can't aspire to. There's that dimension. On the other hand, there is the issue of not only do we pull out of Iraq militarily, but pull it diplomatically. You can't just say go and not bring Syria, Iran, and maybe the U.N. in, because we tore up a country based upon a lie. We've lost lives and money and honor and the expenditures have left us bankrupt here.
We can't fund Leave No Child Behind, we cannot fund section eight adequate housing, we cannot fund adequate public healthcare. And so I'm listening for these themes because at the end of the day, we must be able to make our education more affordable so right now, it's easier to get in jail than to get in school because there's no plan to educate our children. I'm listening for a plan (unintelligible) for healthcare and (unintelligible) of education for all people, because those are keys, our education and our health.
Tavis: You're listening for it and so are we. We'll be talking about it June 28th again in Washington, prime time on PBS with the Democratic candidates; the Republicans in September. Reverend Jackson, the Rainbow Push Coalition founder, as always, nice to have you on the program and have a great trip to London, and I'm sure a wonderful time.
Jackson: Thank you, sir.
Tavis: Thank you.
Back to June 6, 2007