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Sun 3 Apr, 2005 11:53 am
The REVEREND JESSE LOUIS JACKSON, Sr.
Founder and President
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Inc.
The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, is one of America's foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past forty years he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice.
Reverend Jackson has been called the "Conscience of the Nation" and "the Great Unifier," challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and human priorities for the benefit of all. He is known for bringing people together in common ground across lines of race, culture, class, gender and belief.
Born on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jesse Jackson graduated from the public schools in Greenville, then enrolled in the University of Illinois on a football scholarship. He later transferred to North Carolina A&T State University, and graduated in 1964. He began his theological studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary, but deferred his studies when he began working full-time in the Civil Rights Movement. Reverend Jackson received his earned Master of Divinity Degree in 2000.
Reverend Jesse Jackson began his activism as a student in the summer of 1960 seeking to desegregate the local public library in Greenville, and then as a leader in the sit-in movement. In 1965 he became a full-time organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was soon appointed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to direct SCLC's Operation Breadbasket program. In December of 1971, Reverend Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago, IL. The goals of Operation PUSH were economic empowerment and expanding educational, business and employment opportunities for the disadvantaged and people of color. In 1984, Reverend Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a national social justice organization, based in Washington, D.C, devoted to political empowerment, education and changing public policy. In September of 1996, the Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH merged in the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to continue the work of both approaches and to maximize resources.
Long before national health care, a war on drugs, direct peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, ending apartheid in South Africa and advancing democracy in Haiti became accepted public policy positions, Reverend Jesse Jackson advocated them. Reverend Jackson's advocacy on these and other issues helped bring the American public to a new level of consciousness.
Reverend Jackson's two presidential campaigns broke new ground in U.S. politics. His 1984 campaign registered over one million new voters, won 3.5 million votes, and helped the Democratic Party regain control of the Senate in 1986. His 1988, campaign registered over two million new voters, won seven million votes, and helped boost hundreds of state and local elected officials into office. Additionally, this civil rights leader won an historic victory, coming in first or second in 46 out of 54 primary contests. His clear progressive agenda and his ability to build an unprecedented coalition inspired millions to join the political process.
Though Reverend Jesse Jackson has not run for national political office since 1988, he has continued to promote voter registration and lead get-out-the-vote campaigns, believing that everyone should be encouraged to be a responsible, informed and active voter. He has spearheaded major organizing tours through Appalachia, Mississippi, California and Georgia. He has continued to be a leading advocate for a variety of public policy issues, including universal health care, equal administration of justice in all communities, sufficient funding for enforcement of civil rights laws, and for increased attention to business investment in under-served domestic communities (a theme that the Clinton administration picked up as the "New Markets Initiative"). Reverend Jackson also supports a broad range of policies to improve education, eliminate poverty, and remind everyone that we are a "One-Big-Tent-America," with room for all, and none left in the margins.
As a highly respected and trusted world leader, Reverend Jackson has acted many times as an international diplomat in sensitive situations. For example, in 1984 Reverend Jackson secured the release of captured Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman from Syria, and the release of 48 Cuban and Cuban-American prisoners in Cuba. He was the first American to bring hostages out of Kuwait and Iraq in 1990. In 1999 Reverend Jackson negotiated the release of U.S. soldiers held hostage in Kosovo. He has traveled extensively in the Middle East and Asia, and was a special guest of President Fernando Cardoso of Brazil in honoring Zumbi, the leader of slave revolts that led to the end of slavery in Brazil.
A hallmark of Reverend Jackson's work has been his commitment to youth. He has visited thousands of high schools, colleges, universities and correctional facilities encouraging excellence, inspiring hope and challenging young people to study diligently and stay drug-free.
Reverend Jackson has also been a consistent and vigorous supporter of the labor movement in the U.S. and around the world. Reverend Jackson is known as someone who has walked more picket lines and spoken at more labor rallies than any other national leader. He has worked with unions to organize workers, to protect workers' rights, and to mediate labor disputes. In 1996, he traveled to Asia to investigate treatment of workers in the Japanese automobile industry and in athletic apparel factories in Indonesia.
A renowned orator and activist, Reverend Jackson has received numerous honors for his work in human and civil rights and for nonviolent social change. In 1991, the U.S. Post Office put his likeness on a pictorial postal cancellation, only the second living person to receive such an honor. He has been on the Gallup List of the Ten Most Respected Americans for more than a dozen years. He has received the prestigious NAACP Spingarn Award, in addition to honors from hundreds of grassroots, civic and community organizations from coast to coast. Reverend Jackson has received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees, and frequently lectures at major colleges and universities including Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton. The most prestigious honor yet came on August 9, 2000, when President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson and other distinguished notables the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. The Presidential Medal typifies a life of service and a concern for the least fortunate.
From 1992 to 2000, Reverend Jackson hosted "Both Sides With Jesse Jackson" on CNN (Cable News Network). He continues to write a weekly column of analysis which is syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/Los Angles Times. He is the author of two books: Keep Hope Alive (South End Press, 1989), and Straight From the Heart (Fortress Press, 1987). In 1996, Reverend Jackson co-authored the books Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty (Marlowe & Company, 1996) and It's About The Money (Random House, 1999) with his son, U.S. Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
In October 1997, Reverend Jackson was appointed by President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as "Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa." In this official position Reverend Jackson traveled to several countries on the African continent and met with such national leaders as, President Nelson Mandela of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency Daniel T. Arap Moi of Kenya, and President Frederick J.T. Chiluba of Zambia.
Reverend Jackson married his college sweetheart Jacqueline Lavinia Brown in 1963. They have five children: Santita Jackson, Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Jonathan Luther Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Esq., and Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson, Jr.
Revised October 2001
Our entire way of life is at stake
May 17, 2005
BY JESSE JACKSON
And now the ''nuclear option.'' Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist vows to blow up the Senate by getting the Republican majority to outlaw any filibuster against President Bush's judicial nominees. Democrats have approved 208 of Bush's 218 nominees, but are blocking 10 as too extreme. That is unacceptable to Frist.
Bush might sensibly have defused the situation in the hope of moving forward on the business of the American people, but instead he threw gasoline on the fire. In a direct insult to his opposition, he renominated the same handful of extremists previously blocked. Now he demands an up-or-down vote on them -- essentially ordering Frist to blow up the Senate. As in the run-up to the war in Iraq, he's intent on winning, with little sense of the costs and consequences of what he's driving the country into.
Outside groups on both sides are mobilizing. The right of the Republican Party has called blocking a handful of Bush's nominees an assault on ''people of faith.'' (The president apparently is so infallible that to question even 10 of more than 200 nominees is to risk eternal damnation.) Liberals have started touting the filibuster as the bedrock of democracy.
But this debate isn't about freedom of religion. And it isn't about the filibuster. It's about the judges and the direction of the country.
Bush's mantra is that he simply wants judges who will follow the law, not legislate their own will from the bench. He wants judicial restraint, not judicial activism. But that is simply nonsense, and the president knows it. Bush isn't nominating conservative judges as his father did; he's nominating radicals, vetted by the right-wing Federalist Society, and dedicated to advancing the movement's agenda through the courts. He's naming judges who will overturn precedents that the conservative movement doesn't like -- from Roe vs. Wade that gave women the right of choice, to Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed segregation, to the core jurisprudence of the New Deal.
This is central to the right's battle to remake America in its image. Whenever a movement pushes for dramatic social change, it naturally runs up against the status quo bias of the courts. The New Deal movement ran headlong into the free market doctrines that conservative judges had implanted into the Constitution. Those doctrines made labor unions an illegal restraint of trade. They deemed the 40-hour workweek, or health-and-safety regulations, to be unconstitutional infringements on the market. For Roosevelt and the New Deal to wrench America into the modern age, new doctrine was needed. The result: a brutal struggle over the courts.
When the civil rights movement challenged apartheid in America, it ran into the racist doctrines that segregationist judges had implanted into the Constitution. Once more, those doctrines -- separate but equal -- had to be overturned. And a Republican chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, led the court in doing so -- and the courts came under vicious attack. ''Impeach Earl Warren'' signs went up across the South. And a right-wing backlash against the courts began.
What does the right-wing movement want from judges? It wants judges who will overturn the precedent set by Roe and outlaw abortion. It wants an end to affirmative action, with many saying the Brown ruling that outlawed segregation was wrongly decided.
But it wants much more than this. The Federalist Society is dominated by an obscure sect that believes in the ''Constitution in exile.'' Essentially, adherents argue for a return to the 19th century jurisprudence of the Gilded Age -- calling on judges to overturn the New Deal jurisprudence that empowered Congress to regulate the economy, defend workers, protect the environment and consumers, and hold corporations accountable. No, I'm not kidding, and neither are they.
Will the right be able to use a current Republican majority in the Senate to ensconce zealots on the bench to enforce their agenda over the next decades? This answer will say much about what kind of country we will become. No one should be on the sidelines in this one.
Statement by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson on Immigration Policy
Statement On Addressing the Need
For a Comprehensive Immigration Policy and
Forging a African American/Latino Coordinating Council
At the invitation of the Mexican government, I met yesterday with President Vicente Fox in Mexico City to advance the discussion regarding his remarks about Mexican migrant labor and African American workers. Ann Marie Tallman, President and General Counsel of MALDEF, joined me as part of our delegation.
President Fox touched a raw nerve in the United States, and touched off a mild storm of controversy that had the potential to become divisive and polarizing. His remarks were insensitive, offensive, inaccurate and a diversion. We cannot allow even those words to harm a coalition that is necessary for working, poor families.
President Fox shared his regret about his remarks, and realizes the gravity of his comments. I believe he is genuinely concerned about fighting discrimination and supporting human rights for all people. President Fox indicated his strong concern to build bridges and understanding, and committed to strengthening relationships and reaching out to civil rights organizations - Rainbow/PUSH, MALDEF, NAACP, UFW, National Urban League, Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, NCLR and others - as they gather this summer.
Amidst this storm and turbulence, we will not stoop to manipulation or confrontation. We will not be distracted from addressing the real, critical issues facing African American/Latino relations: comprehensive immigration reform, the status of undocumented workers, fair trade policies, the costs and benefits of immigrant populations, and educational equity for our children. We will turn our pain into power and keep our eyes on the prize.
The fact is, U.S. corporate policy is driving the environment: a policy of exporting jobs and capital, and then importing cheap labor and products to maximize their profits. NAFTA and now CAFTA are one-sided trade agreements that serve to exploit working families on both sides of the border and indeed around the globe.
In this environment, we cannot allow Mexican migrant workers to be used as pawns, nor African American labor to be scapegoated. We will advocate a human rights policy that challenges current U.S. corporate policy and its globalized search and surge for greed and profit.
The best of our tradition is Antonio Villaraigosa's recent landslide victory in the Los Angeles mayoral election. The downside is the recent killing of a young Black youth - Domick Redd - by three Latinos in Downey, CA. We must resist these acts of violence in our communities.
We will redouble our efforts to build strong coalitions and revitalize the historic Dr. King/Cesar Chavez alliance between African American, Asian, Latino, Native American and labor communities. Antonio Villaraigosa's recent victory in the Los Angeles mayoral election points the way for successful coalition building.
Today we issue a call to mass action. The plight of the working poor - voting restrictions, permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, benefit and health care cuts for the poor, under-funded education ($27B under-funding of the Leave no Child Behind Act, with $82B more for the war in Iraq) - is driving our agenda. We shall not succumb to manipulation of race, class and language.
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and MALDEF and others are convening an African American/Latino Coordinating Council and initiating a series of roundtable discussions to strengthen and energize a new majority coalition - in a way, reviving Dr. King's Poor Peoples' Campaign. The poor are not poor because they do not work as hard, and the rich are not rich because they work harder. The poor are not poor for lack of effort, but rather institutional and systematic inequities in our society.
Our challenges are great, as this administration has launched a right-wing, ideologically based anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-women, anti-civil rights assault. This administration has spent over $300 billion on a war-of-choice in Iraq, but refuses to fund the most basic educational, health and human services at home.
Rainbow/PUSH will convene its 34th annual convention June 11-16, 2005, in Chicago, and will convene our independent political allies around this new majority agenda. From there, all roads will lead to Atlanta, Georgia, where we will march and rally on August 6 for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act; for the Employee Choice Act and workers' right to organize; comprehensive immigration reform and the Kennedy-McCain bill; for equal, high quality health care for the 55 million Americans without insurance; for education equity for our children; for an independent judiciary where judges place the constitution and the law above ideology.
We must not fight over cheapening the worth of work. We must fight for raising livable wages, health care and education, fair criminal justice system, and resist any vigilantism on the borders or in our neighborhoods. We will fight back, and with a strong coalition, we can win. Forward by hope and never backwards by fear.
Senate Compromise on Judicial Nominees No Victory for Civil Rights, Rev. Jackson Says
Chicago - (May 24, 2005) - The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, today expressed extreme disappointment in the U.S Senate's compromise over the long-standing Senate rules on filibusters, saying it is no victory for civil rights.
"The compromise has more the appearance of a capitulation to the Republican rightwing's demand to allow votes to be cast on three of President Bush's nominees with extremist, ultra-conservative records," said Rev. Jackson, shortly before meeting with more than 50 journalists in a private luncheon at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's headquarters. "Justices Brown, Owen and Pryor are judicial activists, who seek to make law, not interpret it. These Bush appointees are hostile to the interest of civil rights, workers rights, and the environment."
While Senate rules are, for the time being, protected and preserved for a future battle over Supreme Court nominees, focus must now be placed on the judicial records of President Bush's nominees, Rev. Jackson said.
"They are far out of the mainstream with appalling records on civil rights and liberties," Rev. Jackson said. "They are unfit, and it is our hope that the United States will stand up for constitutional rights and principles and vote down their nominations."
Rev. Jackson said the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition agreed with public reports critical of the judicial records of Brown, Rogers and Pryor.
A report by the PFAW described the record of Priscilla Owens nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals as simply bad. While on the Texas Supreme Court, Owen accepted campaign contributions from major corporations, including Enron and Halliburton, and then issued rulings in their favor.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LLCR) described California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown's record on civil rights and discrimination cases as "appalling." Her record, LCCR officials said, demonstrated not just hostility, but active antagonism toward victims of discrimination.
As for Pryor, the former Attorney General of Alabama, he has been criticized for his rulings in high profile cases detrimental to Americans with disabilities.
"This is the perversity of diversity," said Rev. Jackson, speaking of the civil rights record of Rogers Brown and Owen. "If you put your television on mute, they look like they represent diversity, but they are extreme right-wingers."
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