(slow upbeat music) - In this county that we pay our taxes, but we are not represented.

(audience applauding) In the city, we pay our taxes, but we are not represented.

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

We are tired of tyranny.

We are tired of tyranny.

We are somebody.

Respect us.

(audience applauding) - [Narrator] The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the son of an Alabama sharecropper, was baptized in the civil rights struggle when he served as the point man at a number of the Greensboro sit-ins.

In 1963, Reverend Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and quickly gained a reputation for his organizing ability by rallying Chicago's black clergyman behind the then president of SCLC, the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior.

Reverend Jackson became a close friend and advisor to Dr King and for several years, headed up the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference known as Operation Breadbasket.

In 1971, Reverend Jackson formed Operation PUSH, People United to Save Humanity.

And has served as president of that national organization since that time.

- [Listervelt] Convention in Charleston in July, what would you say are some of the major accomplishments of Operation PUSH?

- Well, the most major one is that the president is from Greenville, South Carolina.

He's not the son of Alabama.

- [Listervelt] We gonna have to go back to Ebony, Alabama.

Go ahead.

- I'm proud to be from Greenville, South Carolina.

Perhaps the most major focus that we've had across the years is one on economic development and political empowerment.

The convention in Charleston, July 13th through the 17th will have a major focus on extending and protecting the political franchise of black people.

In the real sense, even though we got the right to vote again in 1965, new forms of denial are now employed to deny blacks political representation.

Prior to 1965, poll tax and literacy tests were used to deny blacks, poor whites, and Hispanics the right to vote.

But since 1965, they now use new forms of denial.

One, the registrars, by and large are not monitored and they arbitrarily determined when the books can be open.

Thus, in some instances, they will not come to churches where people are in mass or they will not come to schools where people are in mass or they will not open the books at convenient registration hours.

There's a lot of arbitrariness in the voter registrar conduct.

That is a fact.

The second factor is that they now use annexation.

And blacks are about to become majority, in many instances they simply move the fence back and make it more difficult to get elected.

Or they use gerrymandering.

They draw lines in such a way it becomes difficult to get elected.

Or as in Columbia, they use at large elections.

The same people who will not let us live at large and open housing or go to school at large, or marry at large or go to church at large, want us to vote at large.

It's a scheme of destruction through dilution.

And so we have these new impediments to fight.

One focus of our convention will be to invite and he has already accepted the Head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, William Bradford Reynolds will address our convention.

And we will give him testimony and depositions from these counters of extreme low voter registration in South Carolina.

In many ways the Voting Rights Act in South Carolina has been reduced to an Indian treaty an unenforced law.

48% of the blacks in this state are unregistered and all of it cannot be pointed to apathy.

Sometimes it's tyranny and intimidation.

Sometimes it's voter registrars being arbitrary.

Other times it's a justice department itself not being dutiful.

The result is even though one third of all eligible voters in this state are black, 302,000 are registered, 292,000 or 48% are unregistered.

The result is there's no black congressman from South Carolina.

We one third, we should have at least two.

There's no black in the state Senate in South Carolina.

Or there's no black and municipal government in Columbia, South Carolina.

So we must take a hard look at political empowerment in this state.

Our goal is to register 100,000 additional black voters in this state this year.

We know it will have a tremendous impact upon the politics of the state and upon the plight and destiny of poor people.

The flip side of our agenda, beside naming the 10 counties that we will focus in, in this state, we will name the coordinators, the ministers, the elected officials, and others who will be a part of this team that will be trained during this convention is the economic side.

We trade with corporate America.

Corporate America does not trade with us.

By and large, these corporations have been the real reason why our nation is in such economic trouble.

Mayors didn't pull out of major cities, corporations did.

Mayors did not replace people with machines, corporations did.

Mayors and governors did not go abroad to get slave labor, slave voters, corporations went abroad to get slave labor market to undercut the American labor market.

And so we must look at corporations in a very new and different kind of way.

We are going to name 10 corporations in this state to get more than their marginal profit from black consumers and black workers.

And we're going to visit them with a combination of lawyers and ministers and researchers.

We expect to demand of them a trade agreement, if they will trade with us, retain black lawyers, retain black CPAs, use our advertising agencies, use our models, use our banks, give our children our share of scholarships.

If they will trade with us, we will trade with them.

We want to be their trading partners, but if they will not trade with us, we will not trade with them and thus become civil warriors.

And thus the real focus of this convention, the July 13th through the 17th will be political empowerment and economic development.

- Let me get back to my initial question.

What would you say are some of the major accomplishments of Operation PUSH?

- One would have to say that PUSH's role and getting the Voting Rights Act extended has been a major political contribution.

Or one could talk about the time that we unceded the Daily Delegation in Miami, Florida in 1972, a number of other elections we've been involved in.

But our voting rights have been severely threatened by the Reagan Administration and by Strom Thurman's behavior, conduct and attitude toward the extension of the Voting Rights Act.

Tomorrow I'll be in the Washington DC at the White House where President Reagan was signed into law for the next 25 years, the extension of the Voting Rights Act, but Section Two and Section Five, the enforcement provisions built into that piece of legislation.

So extending the Voting Rights Act in which we play the major part along with SCLC, NAA and other organizations has been a major contribution.

The other part, of course is economically.

Last year we determined to go after the private economy in a very different kinda way.

If Reagan cuts public aid and corporations deny private trade, we have nothing left but Kool-Aid, but sign not in it or a formula for death.

We said to Coca-Cola, we are more than 25% of your company.

We provide that margin of your business and so we won't trade with you.

At that point, Coca-Cola had 550 bottlers, zero black.

They had 4,000 fountain wholesalers, zero black.

They had $160 million advertising budget, less than a half million dollar black.

We simply want our share.

We have the money to invest, we have the skill, we're willing to work hard.

We simply want a fair return on our investment.

They finally did not see our way and they decided not to sign a trade agreement.

We withdrew from them for three weeks.

We renegotiated the contract.

The result is there are now 20 black fountain wholesalers of that company.

Now black banks are getting letters of credit.

Now for the first time there's a black senior vice president now former ambassador Donald McHenry is on the board.

The follow up to that has been a $360 million, five year trade agreement with the Hubeline Corporation.

For the first time, blacks will own 114 Kentucky Fried franchises.

For the first time, blacks will have $75 million in business in procurement contracts with that company.

Again, we have the money, we have the skill and the will.

We simply must break up restraint of trade.

So I would say that the Hubeline and Coca-Cola agreements, now we're about to sign a deal fairly soon with Seven Up, with Budweiser.

We're focusing now on the auto industry as well as the beverage industry.

So again, political empowerment and economic development apart from just surviving as an organization have been real hallmarks for Operation PUSH.

- Okay, this is for the people and we're talking with the President of Operation PUSH, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

- From South Carolina.

- From South Carolina.

- Not a sharecropper's child from Alabama.

- We'll have talked to Ebony about that.

Okay, we'll take that.

What does the American business community think about your approach?

- Well, at first they have grown so accustomed to one way trade and monopoly trade, they are offended when we ask of them reciprocal trade, a two way trade.

They expect reciprocal trade when they deal with Japan or any other nation because they won't balance a trade.

Indeed, they want trade surplus.

Many of them have grown so accustomed to exploiting blacks that they have no real appreciation of the significance of opening up trade options for black America.

The fact of the matter is once they engage in a trade agreement, they find it to be mutually beneficial.

If white America holds black America in the ditch, we can't grow and white America can't grow.

It's only when they get off of our back can they express themselves and grow and we can grow.

Suppose white America had disallowed Jesse Owens from participating in the 1936 Olympics, America could not have won.

So the whole Jesse Owens down would've been to hold the nation down.

Or Max Schmeling and Joe Louis.

If Joe Louis had not been able to fight, the Germans would've had the world champion.

So to hold us down would've been to hold the nation down.

Or to disallow Marian Anderson from performing in the arts would be to limit America's art.

- Or did we not rise in spite of the holding back?

- Well, indeed we did.

We had to be superior to be equal.

But the point is that these various forms of restraint of trade held the nation back.

There is a divine law of reciprocity.

You really cannot help somebody without helping yourself.

You really cannot hurt somebody without hurting yourself.

That which goes around indeed does come around.

So in 1947, when Jackie Robinson was able to play baseball, for him it meant a chance to grow.

But for the baseball league it meant a chance to expand.

You could not have the expanded major leagues without black players participating.

The same as in football, basketball and baseball.

Politically, Jimmy Carley could not have gotten to the White House if he had been the governor of a state where blacks could not vote.

So by holding us back, it would've held him back.

Well, now corporate America, black America has more money than all the nations in the world except nine.

Black Americans pay $30 million a month in union dues.

Black Americans spend $145 billion a year with corporate America.

Black Americans buy more from corporate America than Russia and China and Japan combined.

So in a real sense, to ignore black wealth, to ignore black trade, to ignore black skill is a luxury that America can ill afford.

I suggest to you that in part we are in trouble in the economic order because of unused black talent, black money and black ideas, thus a decline in productivity.

It would be like you not allowing 12% of your body to function because you didn't like it, because you didn't understand it.

And so in the real sense, America operates against American interests by engaging in restraint of trade and development against black Americans.

- Let us pause a minute to invite the viewing audience in South Carolina to call and ask questions or make comments.

If you are in Columbia, the number is 758-5248.

If you are in Columbia, the number is 758-5248.

If you are outside Columbia, the toll free number is 1-800-922-1560.

Outside Columbia the toll free number is 1-800-922-1560.

- That's up in Greenville, South Carolina, Alabama where my mother is watching this program.

(Listervelt and Reverend Jackson laughing) - What, I know you've heard it, what do you say to those white business people who say that this is blackmail?

- Well, they must first define blackmail or elicit solicitation.

And that is that if I want to take something from a business person because I have something over his head that may embarrass him and therefore force him to give me money to keep from divulging something about the person that's embarrassing, that's called blackmail.

Which is wrongly put or it's called elicit solicitation.

Well, that's not what we are doing.

We are very public.

We are seeking reciprocal trade.

We say to the corporation, if you want us to trade with you, you trade with us.

That's fair.

If you don't want us to trade with you, then don't trade with us or vice versa.

So we're talking about a mutually beneficial economic arrangement.

And those who simply have such venom and such hatred and such blindness until they will deny us trade and expect us not to expect trade, we are really expecting too much.

- Okay, all lines are lit.

Let's take a call.

For the people, you're on the air.

- [Caller] Yes, I'd like to ask Reverend Jackson, what ingredient does he think the black people in this country need to be totally successful as far as economically and family wise and totally what is the main ingredient is destruction of the family unit within the black communities?

Is that something that has a major effect on the continuing success or trying to be successful?

- Okay, thank you.

- I think that there are really four angles.

One angle of course is the historical angle that is that black Americans came to this country not as immigrants or refugees, we came as slaves.

And that is definitely a different track for those who came on slave ships and those who came on immigrant ships.

Not only did we come in ways that were against our interests and against our will, but since we've been here, blacks are in a color cast.

If you look out right now and saw forth 50 white people, some may be Lithuanian, some may be German or Irish or Italian or Jewish, but they are fungible.

You really cannot distinguish them by color.

But blacks are set aside by color.

Thus our cast is more dominant than our class.

So that no matter what our intelligence may be or our character may be or our wealth may be, or our education may be, all blacks got the right of public accommodations on the same day because of our cast.

All blacks got the right to play baseball on the same day.

All blacks got the right to vote on the same day.

And so our cast distinctions along with our class distinctions put a double yolk upon black people.

And that makes us fundamentally different in our pilgrimage than other people.

Sure, whites can talk about going from Lord Cabin to the White House or Jimmy Carly from Peanut Planet to the presidency, but somehow blacks with superior minds and character just cannot take that same route.

So we must appreciate that we literally have to be superior to be equal.

We're always facing a headwind of adversity.

It's difficult to make it that way, but once you do, you're stronger and you're the better for it.

On the other hand, there must be some sense of a spiritual foundation that is some sense of God centeredness in one's life.

That is to say that once you really know God, everything else is little.

After all God made man, he made sun, moon and stars.

And thus to no God in the field that one is in God's care, one can conquer all things no mountain too high, no valley too low.

It is with that sense of spiritual security therefore that one can say that no grave can hold my body down.

Or no jail cell can contain me.

Or no denial is too great.

Every crucifixion can potentially become a resurrection.

And that is that spiritual self that allow to go through the valleys and shadows of death and fear no evil.

That is in great contrast I might add to pick in one's brain and liquor.

Or putting dope in your veins, rather than hope in your brains.

Or robbing and raping your neighbor or engaging in some form of self-destruction, whether it is suicide or homicide as the case may be.

Then there's the economic question.

That is to say that we are down economically basically because of one way trade.

2200 soft drink franchises, zero black.

We trade with soft drink franchises, they don't trade with us.

Last year Chrysler had seven and a half billion dollars in sales, $3 billion in procurement or trade less than $20 million with blacks.

That kind of trade record has economically bankrupted black America.

The political side of course, as I said earlier, is to fight for the extension of the right to vote and for the enforcement provisions to be enacted.

And I would hope that you who are listening in television and looking in television land today would in fact do your best.

We have an obligation to use our vote and our dollar scientifically.

- Let's take a call.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Yes, I'd like to ask Reverend Jackson, in reference to the billions of dollars that are spent through the the African American Church and the billion dollars that are unspent in the African American church towards our economic development, how would you parallel the ties between our economic deprivation and the fact that we have a seemingly unnatural allegiance to the white business community as associated with our unnatural allegiance to the Caucasian image of Jesus?

I use that as an example because I believe that in order to really totally be economically independent, we have to be as well spiritually and morally independent from such a limited understanding.

Now, what's your response to that?

- [Listervelt] Okay, thank you.

- To be sure there must be a spiritual liberation.

There must be an allegiance to a sound theology.

And we must know that Jesus was a dark skinned Palestinian Jew, with hair like lamb wool.

Anyone who's been in the Middle East would know very well that Jesus could not very well have been blonde and blue eyed unless he would've stood out as if he were an albino, as if there was something wrong with his skin.

And when one goes to Eastern Orthodox Church, which is the oldest church, one sees the Black Madonna as the highest object of worship.

So that is something to be said about an attempt to bleach Jesus and make Jesus or to make God in the cultures on image rather than make the culture in the image of God.

There's something to be said about that, perhaps we can talk about it later.

On the other hand, we must simply challenge our churches and schools and homes to use effectively our resources.

We must turn to each other and not on each other.

And we must believe in each other.

If we send our young children out of our churches inspired to go to law school, we then must be able to let them handle our church business.

Most of our black schools are not retaining black lawyers, black CPAs.

To be sure we are doing in that sense, less than our best.

That is why the PUSH International Trade Bureau is in the process of organizing an economic common market.

This is to say that we will begin to negotiate collectively as we confront these major corporations begin to build our own banks and our own insurance companies to use our own agencies to have belief in confidence and our own lawyers and professionals and to begin to make a valid contribution to this economy.

We really are intellectually capable of that and to be sure we have enough money to be respected in this economy.

- Okay, for the people, you are on the air.

For the people, you are on the air.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Hello, thank you Mr Middleton for having Reverend Jackson on.

I have two quick questions and I'll hang up and I'll listen to you.

Reverend Jackson, I heard you on the six o'clock news talking about the voting and our having the right to vote and how many people that are not registered to vote.

Well I'm here in Clayton county, which is a rather big county.

But you've got a lot of black voters here that are registered but do not vote.

I'd like to know, what you could do about that?

I mean, if you could kind of come through, you know, all of Clayton County is not manning and the big cities.

I mean there are little places like Remany, Pinewood and the rest of these little places where I live, you know.

But I was just wondering if you could get somebody around to check on these real country field people to tell them that the only right they have is a black person in South Carolina is the right to vote.

Number two.

- Well, let me suggest that the reason why I want you and others to come to Charleston, South Carolina to our convention July 13th through the 17th, we're gonna be conducting voter registration workshops and motivational workshops.

We have a list, the paper I have before me right now of the 10 top counties where the vote registration is lowest.

And those 10 counties where the actual numbers.

I'm literally embarrassed when I looked at 69.91% of all the eligible black voters in Greenville County are unregistered.

Seven out of 10, 20,000 voters unregistered.

In terms of actual numbers, there are 36,000 blacks in Ridgeland County or Columbia eligible to vote who are not registered.

And so now that we have the data, we've done the research, we are trying to get our ministers and our community workers and interested persons such as yourself to meet us in Charleston to register for the convention.

It just costs $35 to register for the whole week.

You may attend these workshops, become informed, become inspired, and leave there with a commitment to make a difference.

Our goal is to have 100,000 more black voters on the books by the end of this year.

- [Caller] That was my second question.

I was gonna ask how one could get to these conventions.

I've been involved in several of them.

I notice that they're quite expensive.

Now I'm a high school graduate twice.

I've gone to college in the University of Maine in Orono and I haven't worked in two years.

I can't even get a job working as a dishwasher.

And that was my second question.

How does one get to these kind of conventions?

Thank you.

- Well, to be sure there are expense factors involved in a convention, so we've kept them as low as possible.

Some people are coming for example, who are not staying in hotels, they're staying in their friends homes, they're staying in their relatives homes.

So mothers are driving down by day and driving back home at night to be sure.

When people come they may participate in the workshops.

Before the program is over tonight we'll share with you the number that you may call in Columbia to get more convention information and the number you may call in Charleston so that you will know where our headquarters church is and just basically what the convention will be.

But nobody will be turned away because they cannot afford to participate in the convention.

After all, your very presence is a form of wealth that we simply must use to develop the broader wealth of our community, what one might call the commonwealth.

- This agreement with Coca-Cola and some of these other companies that you've talked with, many people would say that it benefits basically middle income people, business people.

And that one of the criticisms of the civil rights movement is that its biggest beneficiaries have been middle income and educated people.

Do you think of that as a valid criticism?

And what can be done to broaden the range of people who can benefit in black prosperity?

- That's an invalid criticism.

In 1965 when we went to Selma, Alabama to get the right to vote, there were 400 elected and appointed black officials in this nation.

Today there are almost 6,000.

The economic range goes from the very bottom in many ways to the very top, from the very small unincorporated towns to cities like Gary Detroit, Los Angeles and New York, New Jersey.

We've gone from three black congress people to 17 and the range of education and economic class varies there.

That is an invalid accusation.

One might say that people who are more prepared often have a greater ability, they seize opportunity once the door is open.

It's like if you are playing football and the line is open, it's open for whoever to run through the run through.

But those who run the fastest tend to get through that faster, which says something about education.

People who are educated tend to be able to run faster, they tend to have more mobility, they tend to be able to do more with what they got.

That's one reason why more people need to get education.

But the fact is all people now have the right to use the bathroom downtown, have the right to use the hotel or motel of their choice.

All of them now have the right to register and now have the right to vote.

Our movement is incomplete because we got our civil rights, we don't have our silver rights.

We got freedom but we don't have equality.

So many people have the right to take a vacation but can't afford it.

They have the right to open housing, but can't afford to get a house.

They have the right to go to college but can't pay tuition.

And so the unfinished business of our liberation movement is indeed economic emancipation.

But to say that the civil rights movement somehow made a provision for a certain class of blacks that was not made for other blacks is invalid.

After all, when people tend to get their education and strive hard, they can change their class even though they can't change their cast.

For example, when I was born on the poor side of town, with the slop jar in the house like other neighbors and the bathroom or the outhouse in the backyard.

And the tin top roof.

And the cold band under the house.

And you cut kindling with the wood stove.

And you washed in the wash pot.

And you had the clothes lines hanging out in the backyard.

And you had the garden.

Everybody in the house and everybody in the neighborhood had a skeleton key to everybody else's house.

And I had to walk past the white schools to get to the black schools and use the books four years after white children had used them and not have backs on those books and couldn't bring those books home because six of us had to use that book.

So the fact is that the fact that some of us with the grace of God are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty.

I can't say that the public accommodation bill didn't help me and my family, it did.

The voting rights bill didn't help me and my family, it did.

But thanks me to God, I was so determined because my parents inspired me to use what I had.

I simply took the most off what was available and saw some choose the high road.

- Okay - And some choose the low road.

But I think it is an unfair criticism to somehow suggest that black leadership is less concerned about poor people than they really ought to be.

I don't think it's a fair criticism.

- Okay, let's take a call.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] I would like to ask Mr Jackson, what would be some of the ingredients in a recipe for the organization of a national black political party and would be the elements of this realization?

- Okay, thank you.

- The key element is for more and more black people to realize that they cannot ride the freedom in Pharaoh's chariot.

That the Republican elephant is one of Pharaoh's animals.

The democratic donkey is one of Pharaoh's animals.

And even though we may ride one chariot or the other for a given period of time, neither one of those parties have as their agenda the liberation of black people.

We did not get public accommodations because the Democratic or the Republican Party, black people initiated that drive.

We did not get from the back of the bus to the front of the bus because the political party came to our rescue, either of them.

Or another, we get the right to vote because of that.

And so we must be clear on the fact that we must vote as an interest group.

We may mature into a party.

A party has to have a definite legal structure, it has to have a fundraising mechanism.

It puts forth candidates.

But we must at least operate as an interest group.

Indeed labor operates as an interest group.

Management through its associations operate as an interest group.

The Jewish community operates as an interest group.

Black Americans who are in a cast system, who are in exile, living under occupation, can do no less than to organized as an interest group to put forth our interest first and the party interest second.

The party must adjust to us, not us to the party.

The party was made for us, we were not made for the party.

So I think a sense of of independence when the black political movement is in order and it's consistent with the way that the politics is played in America, ethnic, economic are worker interest groups.

- Political party has been tried.

And you were involved I think in the initial political convention I think in Gary on that time.

What is the status of that kind of movement today?

- Well I think that the black political movement continues to mature and to grow.

In some sense, the various political efforts in the past to start independent parties have been valid, but perhaps immature.

You know, an ideas time has to come, the moment has to be right for certain ideas to be seized.

I think for example, that black Americans may have to put forth a valid candidacy in 1984.

I am not convinced that just to have an anti Reagan posture is necessarily good politics for blacks in 1984.

Or to have blind loyalty to blind democratic leadership.

I think that we must have a vision that God has given us on what the nation ought to be about.

We cannot follow a democratic party leadership that will literally celebrate Mr big and breaking the law, killing 17,000 people with American weapons and American money and American permissive will.

We cannot stand by while 17,000 are dead.

Doctors are locked away from hospitals and 600,000 are left homeless.

If an American president cannot live above the law, certainly an American client state cannot live above the law.

I saw in Philadelphia last week a kind of, I saw people being bank rolled into moral bankruptcy.

They'd simply not have the moral authority.

If one cannot speak with clarity and authority to the Israelis using a policy of genocide wiping out Palestinian people indiscriminately then one cannot challenge South Africa from going into Angola.

Or challenge the general from suppressing people in Poland or Russia from coming into Afghanistan.

We simply must have moral authority.

And black Americans who have withstood the heat of the day cannot be caught under the limited moral degrees of just democratic leadership.

On the other hand, we must have a formula for peace in the Middle East and that's a critical area.

After all human beings are involved, we have an interest in Israeli security within the recognized boundaries.

We as a nation have an interest in Israeli security.

We also have an interest in affirming Palestinian humanity.

Both are people and both are God's people.

And so to fight to reconcile them, to fight for Israeli security and Palestinian justice represents forward thinking, courageous, progressive leadership.

None of the democratic candidates are willing to take that kind of position.

But they've also been silent on Haitians and concentration camps.

They're silent America becoming the number one trading partner with South Africa.

And so because of the kind of betrayal of silence, blacks must more and more use our 17 million eligible voters as a block in unity to speak so as to gain attention and to be heard.

And we find that the issues that blacks raise are in interest of everybody.

When we fight for the government coming to the rescue of poor people who need food stamps because they don't have money, 55% of the food stamp recipients are white women.

They are more whites on food stamps numerically than they are blacks.

But you should get food stamps based upon need, not based upon race.

Poor people get the meals, but the rich get the millions.

Last year, Winn-Dixie in Florida alone got a half billion dollars that they made from food stamps.

One 10th of all food stamps went to the island of Puerto Rico.

Their food stamps are used for income supplement.

So to put a black face on food stamps is not good.

Urban has a black face on it.

There are more whites in urban America than there are blacks.

And so it's unfair to use blacks as a scapegoat.

Our welfare, there are four whites on welfare for everyone black, aid to dependent children.

It's not a body of able bodied lazy men it's 92%, mostly women and children.

And so somehow our leadership must project the kind of compassion for all people, whether they're white, black or brown, Jew, Gentile or Palestinian.

We must have clear positions that are moralist sound domestically and in the world community.

I'm not gonna stand back and just wait for leadership to come from one of these parties when in fact God has given us the witness and the intelligence to represent ourselves.

- Now having said that, the Democratic party nor the Republican party is our answer.

Now, we are not gonna see Reverend Jesse Jackson during the next presidential election campaigning for a democratic president, are we?

- It's not necessarily so.

It is not out of the question that I will not run myself.

I've been approached many times.

- Do you wanna announce here?

- Well, I'm not ready to do that.

But it is not out of the question.

I simply cannot stand by and remain despondent looking at what our options are.

It almost comes down to me if you know, if not me, who?

If not now, when?

If not here, where?

I think we must make ourselves available to look at what our real live options are.

I think Black America could put real creative pressure on the political system that we now know it, a whole lot of pressure on the Democratic party because it needs us and we've not asserted ourselves in ways that really makes us felt.

It really makes our presence felt.

I would think that politics being a game of inches and circumstances, we must finally make hard choices between live options.

And so even though I may go politically, go on a political shopping spree in November or two years from now, I may have chicken on my mind, but the only thing available may be some veal chop or some pork chop.

And I may have to choose from the best of what's available and that's life and that's politics.

But I have an obligation to at least write out my own menu and make it true to my own appetite.

- Allow me to pursue something you said a while ago.

Are you seriously thinking about possibly running?

- Well, I have been seriously approached and I am seriously thinking about it.

I have not yet arrived at a conclusion.

But I am not impressed with the Republican Leadership in the White House.

I was not inspired at all by the democratic options I saw this past week in Philadelphia.

And therefore Mayor Richard Hatcher and others of us have been engaging in rather major discussions because I think that there's a broad base of blacks who felt locked out and women and Hispanics and young people and the disconnected minorities just may very well be the majority, just may very well be the light and darkness that the nation needs.

- Last question along that line, your goal, if you were to run would be to do what?

To win or possibly what?

- I have never run for political office before 'cause I have remained true to the prophetic tradition and so I've not yet made that determination yet.

But the goal would be to win.

And it would be to mold the discordant elements of the now feeling leaderless into an orchestrated unit so that we can have enough of power to make a difference.

Whether it is on a South African policy or a Middle Eastern policy or an anti-nuclear policy or a domestic policy of reindustrialization.

So to make corporate America more accountable to America.

Somehow when you look at government and ghetto, government and ghetto, ghetto and Democrats, ghetto and Republicans, corporate America owns the government and the ghetto.

Any plan that does not involve a reindustrialization scheme and an obligation by corporate America is inadequate.

It is economically insufficient.

And so I am rather convinced that winning is possible.

But I know that making an impression that would make a difference is even likely, I mean like very likely.

- Okay, let's take a call.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Reverend Jackson, in reference to the statement that you indicated earlier where you'd like to register an additional 100,000 voters in South Carolina, could you elaborate on what difference that would make as far as economic conditions in South Carolina?

I'll hang up and listen to you.

- Thank you.

- Well the 100,000 additional black voters have absolutely determined the attitude and behavior of state officials are people who have to run statewide toward black people.

I mean, with an additional a 100,000 black voters, the choice of governors, no matter what party they represent, would be much more humane to black people because they cannot afford to be otherwise.

No group could afford to politically isolate us.

You absolutely would not have the kind of Strom Thurmond polarization.

No senator could afford to run on veil threats toward black people or use us as a scapegoat or use us as a stepping stone.

An additional 100,000 black voters, can get us one or two blacks in the US Congress, it would get blacks in the State Senate.

And it would determine in a greater measure legislation in the House and in the Senate.

Plus it would make way for a new coalition between blacks and progressive whites that could liberate this whole state.

So long as whites and blacks are in the kind of unspoken civil war looking at each other, we cannot look at our real human potential as a group of people in the state.

After all, we have the Atlantic Ocean as a part of the landscape of our state.

There's no reason why South Carolina cannot be a very wealthy state.

We have natural resources, we have human resources, we have an ocean port in Charleston.

And so if in fact black Americans in this state add an additional 100,000 voters, it will affect the politics of this state into the next century.

- Okay, let's take some calls.

All lines are lit.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Yes, I'm a concerned citizen of about several years ago, concerned black citizen was trying to find out why this flag was still flying over the state capitol.

I was just wondering, I hadn't heard anything more about it.

And just, I mean, for a black person to succeed in his morale and his esteem through trying to do right for a fellow man and what's Reverend Jesse Jackson was trying to do for everybody overall it would be kind of hard to do that with a flag flying over the state capitol like that.

I was just wondering why hasn't anything been done about that yet?

- [Listervelt] Okay, thank you.

- There have been many attempts by black state legislators to get the confederate flag down.

But I suggest to you that we're gonna have to raise our people up and then pull the flag down.

But in the real sense, the more people we have on the books and therefore the more folks we have in the legislature on the House and Senate side, the more likely we are to be able to pull that flag down and other forms of humiliation.

So I would recommend that the energy that we spend looking at the White House, the State House and the courthouse for answers and help, answers really come from your house and my house and the house of prayer.

And when we use what we got, God will give us the increase and we have enough power collectively to make our enemies leave us alone.

- Okay, let's take a call.

For the people, you are on the air.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Yes, Mr Jackson, earlier you said that corporate America refuses to trade with black people.

All of the black people are trading with corporate America.

I've always understood trade to be an exchange between two different parties and so that anytime that there's any trade that both are involved.

What it seems to me you're calling on is a boycott to punish these corporations.

I'd like you to respond to that.

And also to comment on whether or not this will create any further animosity that'll continue.

- Okay, you wanna hold?

- [Caller] Yes.

- You know, there are two parties.

I mean, that is the producer, the corporate company, and blacks are the consumers.

And so there are two parties, without the consumer, the producer cannot stay in business, without the producer, the consumer cannot be served.

And so they need each other.

There's the basis for a two way relationship.

Except historically there's been a one way relationship.

We consume and become the company's margin of profit.

Historically, we've worked and been the company's cheap labor base.

And yet when it comes to trade, they will not retain our lawyers or our CPAs or use our products, our goods, our services or loan us money and venture capital arrangements.

And so it's one way trade.

The result is the black community becomes, what, a huge trade deficit with a talent surplus.

You can't go to Japan and just take business.

You must share ownership.

You can't go to Mexico and just take business.

You must share ownership, or Nigeria.

There must be a development formula.

And a formula of one way trade is a colonial formula.

It is not a two way trade.

When we deal with Japan, we expect them to trade with us because we trade with them.

It's called reciprocal trade.

Now, if Black America is more than the margin of profit of a given company, it's not too much for us to expect of them to trade with us while we trade with them.

Indeed we have some moral obligation, some moral imperative to cooperate with the good and to not cooperate with the evil.

And I suggest people who want it one way are essentially evil.

And we have no moral obligation to embrace the evil.

- [Listervelt] How do you feel about that, sir?

- [Caller] Well, I agree basically with a lot of the things you're saying.

My fear would be that, that through this group action or what I would call a boycotter, you know, deciding to trade on one side, that we might create more animosity that will further influence the corporations, corporate America, whatever, to further isolate the black people.

That's my feeling about it.

- Thank you.

A short comment on that.

- They are not able to further isolate us because our buying power is too great and too significant for them to further isolate us.

Just as politicians through gerrymandering and annexation and at large run from our vote, the businesses run to our dollar.

To vote, you gotta be 18, you got to register and you gotta choose a candidate.

But to spend that dollar, you don't have to do any of that.

And so in the real sense, we simply must change this basic pattern.

Now, it was said that if blacks really insist on playing baseball in 1947, that we would make a lot of people angry.

We did.

But so what?

I mean, if anger was the only way that they could express a reaction to justice, then they simply had to mature and learned to control their emotions.

It was said if blacks ever really fought for public accommodations that our fighting for the right to use the bathroom downtown, our fighting for the right to vote, it would really upset people.

Well it did, but they had to adjust because they had to adjust to the law.

In the real sense, they said if blacks ever became mayors of cities and congressmen that something would happen.

Nothing really happened except the nation became better for it.

And so, in a real sense for corporate America to expand and black America to develop is in everybody's interest.

And we may not change their attitude, but we could certainly change their behavior.

And we'd have no intention of return the remaining in a one way relationship.

- As you know, the black unemployment rate is about 50%.

What does Operation PUSH propose to do about that?

- There is no way to reduce massive unemployment without government assistance.

The government has some real obligation.

First of all, it's not just black unemployment.

That's an economic depression across the board.

It's hitting blacks disproportionately because we're disproportionately in the public economy 'cause we're locked outta the private economy.

In Gary unemployment is 88%, 88%.

Some other cities it is up to 50%, far lower than depression of 50 years ago.

The government has not reduced the budget under the Reagan administration.

It has simply shifted the budget and expanded it.

The federal deficit is greater now than it has ever been before.

The budget's bigger now than ever before.

There's even more money to train young people than ever before.

Except the money that was going into Cedar to train young men how to heal is now going into the Pentagon training young men how to kill.

There has been a shift in the money and a shift in values.

And the government has some real obligation to put much more focus on education, on training and employment of our young people and form a partnership with corporate America so as to make it work.

- Speaking of killing.

The Brookings Institute, as you know, recently released a study which showed that 20% Afro-Americans made up 20% of the military personnel.

How do you feel about that situation?

- To be sure blacks are in the Maine are locked out of public schools.

You know, in Chicago, four years ago, 49,000 freshmen entered a school system, 65% black, this past June on the 19,000 graduated.

Where are those 30,000?

They're unemployed, they're unskilled, they're in jail, they have low skilled jobs or they in the military.

And so in some sense we either are going to train our children in school or we're gonna train them in jail or train them in the army.

Many young blacks go to the military just to have a job and get a chance to travel someplace because of our reduced economic options into the domestic economy.

- Okay, how do you feel about the fact that if a war were to come about, the Black American soldier would be paying a disproportionate amount of cost, if you will?

- [Reverend Jackson] We've done that in every major war.

- So you saying it's okay now or what?

- Black blacks died disproportionately in the Civil War.

We fought to free ourselves.

We fought to enslaved ourselves.

Blacks fought disproportionately in the Vietnam War.

And so it is interesting to me, not only have we died more than our share of death, but no black man, no black, not one single black has ever been convicted of treason.

There's a gross underestimation of black intelligence, black loyalty, black patriotism and black productivity to this country.

I would hope that no young man, black or white would get trapped in the Falkland Islands in some folly.

Or get trapped in the Middle East in some genocide policy.

Or get trapped in South Africa fighting against moral interests.

I would hope really that we would study war no more and beat our sword and apply shares.

The reason why this anti-nuclear activity is so important because in this instance, those who are not enlisted as soldiers, the non military people will die from nuclear fallout.

So everybody really is in the war and therefore everybody must march to stop the nuclear proliferation.

- Okay, let's take a call.

For the people, you are on the air.

- [Caller] Thank you very much.

I'd like to say I've really enjoyed what Reverend Jesse Jackson been saying.

- Thank you very much.

We have less than three minutes.

- Okay, I'm a white male, middle thirties.

And I was wondering, I was wanting to say that I hope that sometime in the future that I'd be able to vote for this man.

And if he was ever in some debates with some of the leading presidential candidates, I believe that the Americans would, we'd have a clear choice of some good answers to solve the problems we have.

And I was wondering if he would answer, if he was our president, would we have a bigger government than what we have to be able to solve our problems?

That's the only thing that I was a little worried about in what he was saying as far as like producing jobs for people.

Or would that be an answer to reduce our government.

Now I would end it, thank you.

- I would be concerned of an effective government what is big or small.

For example, if you were going to court and your life was in jeopardy, you wouldn't demand that your lawyer conduct a short trial.

You would demand that he conduct an effective trial, hopefully short, but it may be long, but you wanna get free.

Or if you were going to surgery, you wouldn't demand that your doctor give you short surgery.

You'd demand that he give you sufficient surgery because you want to get well.

If government plays the role of the balancing wheel between labor and management, then government can help labor and can help management and can keep a moderate size.

But if the corporate America collapses because the corporations have inferior management because when they make their money they take it out the economy and buy slave labor to undercut American labor.

If the corporations replace machines, replace people with machines, the corporate sector drops down on its responsibility.

It forces the government to offset the corporate collapse.

And that's how you get an imbalance.

Now what we have in the Reagan situation is that government has jumped in the bed with corporate America against workers and poor people.

And thus we have an economic depression for some and unprecedented wealth for others.

- We've got a minute.

I know you wanna touch on the convention again.

- I do, but what I really was trying to get, and I hope that you will play it back next week, is the telephone number here in Columbia?

I do not have that just now.

One may call our office here as well as in Charleston.

So if you want further information, I hope that they would call the station to get information about our office here.

The convention dates are July 13th through the 17th.

All people are welcome to attend Black America and Economic Common Market is our theme.

For $35 for a week one may register.

If you are interested, black or white, young or old in joining this drive to register an additional 100,000 blacks to vote in this state between that and the end of this year, I want you to call the station to get involved with Operation PUSH and to in fact come that convention and make this an historic occasion.

- Five second answer.

Does Reverend Jesse Jackson ever get tired?

- Yes, I get tired, but I also get revived because I have learned to do much with a little.

- Reverend Jackson, thank you for coming home to South Carolina.

All right, Alabama.

That's our program, thanks for joining us.

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