Helen Burns Jackson, the mother of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, has died. She was 92.
Showing posts with label Rev. Jesse Jackson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rev. Jesse Jackson. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Selma! 50 Years Later: "Remember, Recommit, and Restore."
The first Black U.S. President of three of the most important civil rights milestones in America's tortured racial history, President Obama and his family will pay homage, again:
Jackson said that the Shelby ruling amounted to "taking away the keys but leaving us with the car."
"We are at a critical moment," said Bernice King, CEO of the King Center and Martin Luther King Jr.'s youngest daughter. "We can keep reacting, or we can finally make some critical changes like they did in the '50s and '60s."
From March 5th through the 9th, all eyes will once again be on Selma as The Bridge Crossing Jubilee commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday with a weekend of reflection around the theme "Remember, Recommit, and Restore."
- In 2013, President Obama spoke at the 50th anniversary celebration of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
- Last year, President Obama addressed the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
- Today, President Obama and his family will lead a tribute at the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of what became known as "Bloody Sunday," when police set upon scores of people marching from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest their inability to vote, clobbering and tear-gassing them until they were bloody.
Jackson said that the Shelby ruling amounted to "taking away the keys but leaving us with the car."
"We are at a critical moment," said Bernice King, CEO of the King Center and Martin Luther King Jr.'s youngest daughter. "We can keep reacting, or we can finally make some critical changes like they did in the '50s and '60s."
On March 7, 1965 nearly 500 civil rights marchers were beaten back by police officers equipped with tear gas and clubs as they tried to cross the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. On March 21, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led a five-day march with crowds growing to 25,000 in a federally supported march for equality. The 54 mile march directly impacted the signing of Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Countless American heroes whose names are not in the history books, that are not etched on marble somewhere — ordinary men and women from all corners of this nation, all walks of life, black and white, rich and poor, students, scholars, maids, ministers — all who marched and who sang and organized to change this country for the better.
Countless American heroes whose names are not in the history books, that are not etched on marble somewhere — ordinary men and women from all corners of this nation, all walks of life, black and white, rich and poor, students, scholars, maids, ministers — all who marched and who sang and organized to change this country for the better.
Today, Selma still struggles to overcome its legacy.The city's population has declined by about 40 percent to 20,000 in the last 50 years and Dallas County's unemployment rate is nearly double the state average. Public schools in Selma are nearly all black; most whites go to private schools. Blacks lead the annual "Bloody Sunday" commemoration; whites lead an annual re-enactment of the 1865 "Battle of Selma" to attract Civil War re-enactors.
Thousands are expected to attend the festivities including U.S.Presidents, congressional representatives, national personalities, and entertainers.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Through the Eyes of Rev. Jackson-Still not Equal
BY JESSE JACKSON
December 17, 2013
As Nelson Mandela’s body is laid to rest, the leaders from across the world who came to pay tribute to him leave with shared perspectives. They see the fruits of the remarkable triumphs of Mandela and the African National Congress — the defeat of apartheid, the transition of power from the oppressive minority to the newly empowered majority, the creation of a great democracy. And they see the continued inequality that scars South Africa, the gulf between the wealthy and the impoverished, still largely reflecting a color line.
We see the same in this country. We celebrate, as we should, the remarkable triumphs of Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement: the end of apartheid in the South, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the legal prohibition of racial discrimination in employment and education.
Yet we also see the gulf between rich and poor, a gulf still often tracing a color line in many of our cities and regions.
These parallels are not random or accidental. The reality was one people enslaved on three continents — North America, Europe and Africa. Racism is a tool that was used to justify the brutality. Racism exploits the other economically. It creates the illusion of one group’s superiority and another’s inferiority.
The attitude and the practice get rooted into institutions across the society. In South Africa, Mandela and the ANC ended apartheid laws and won the right to vote. In the US, Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement did the same.
But there is also engrained economic separation: clubs, businesses and meetings that remain closed informally, even if they were no longer legally separated. There is the discrimination of legacy: the young inheriting less, having less access to elite schools, for their parents had been locked out. There is the discrimination of property and neighborhood: people of color left out of better neighborhoods, even after they could no longer be legally excluded. There is the discrimination in education: poor urban schools can’t keep the best teachers nor offer the best equipment and supplies. There is discrimination in the access to capital: minority businesses still find it more difficult to raise capital, and rapacious mortgage bankers still prey on minority homeowners.
Over time, a few from across the color line excel and break into the closed clubs, but the majority still faces long odds. But the problem in South Africa, where blacks are the majority, or the U.S., where people of color are becoming the majority, is that the whole economy suffers from the vestiges of entrenched discrimination.
In South Africa, an impoverished majority limits the ability of the country to build a prosperous economy and stable society. In the U.S., the government does less than in other industrial nations to lift the poor, a legacy of the belief that these “takers” are “those people.” Even now the right attacks the Affordable Care Act, “Obamacare,” for allegedly raising costs on the middle class in order to provide health care for “those people.”
In reality, most poor people in the U.S. work every day that they can. They take the early bus. They serve and prepare our food in fast food restaurants. They staff the Wal-Marts where we buy our goods. And at the end of the week, they are paid so little that they are forced to use food stamps to be able to feed themselves. More poor people are white than black. They are disproportionately young and female.
So as we celebrate the remarkable triumphs of Nelson Mandela and his movement in South Africa, and of Dr. King and his movement in the U.S., we realize that much more remains to be done. They freed their peoples but could not win them equality. That remains the next chapter.
December 17, 2013
As Nelson Mandela’s body is laid to rest, the leaders from across the world who came to pay tribute to him leave with shared perspectives. They see the fruits of the remarkable triumphs of Mandela and the African National Congress — the defeat of apartheid, the transition of power from the oppressive minority to the newly empowered majority, the creation of a great democracy. And they see the continued inequality that scars South Africa, the gulf between the wealthy and the impoverished, still largely reflecting a color line.
We see the same in this country. We celebrate, as we should, the remarkable triumphs of Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement: the end of apartheid in the South, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the legal prohibition of racial discrimination in employment and education.
Yet we also see the gulf between rich and poor, a gulf still often tracing a color line in many of our cities and regions.
These parallels are not random or accidental. The reality was one people enslaved on three continents — North America, Europe and Africa. Racism is a tool that was used to justify the brutality. Racism exploits the other economically. It creates the illusion of one group’s superiority and another’s inferiority.
The attitude and the practice get rooted into institutions across the society. In South Africa, Mandela and the ANC ended apartheid laws and won the right to vote. In the US, Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement did the same.
But there is also engrained economic separation: clubs, businesses and meetings that remain closed informally, even if they were no longer legally separated. There is the discrimination of legacy: the young inheriting less, having less access to elite schools, for their parents had been locked out. There is the discrimination of property and neighborhood: people of color left out of better neighborhoods, even after they could no longer be legally excluded. There is the discrimination in education: poor urban schools can’t keep the best teachers nor offer the best equipment and supplies. There is discrimination in the access to capital: minority businesses still find it more difficult to raise capital, and rapacious mortgage bankers still prey on minority homeowners.
Over time, a few from across the color line excel and break into the closed clubs, but the majority still faces long odds. But the problem in South Africa, where blacks are the majority, or the U.S., where people of color are becoming the majority, is that the whole economy suffers from the vestiges of entrenched discrimination.
In South Africa, an impoverished majority limits the ability of the country to build a prosperous economy and stable society. In the U.S., the government does less than in other industrial nations to lift the poor, a legacy of the belief that these “takers” are “those people.” Even now the right attacks the Affordable Care Act, “Obamacare,” for allegedly raising costs on the middle class in order to provide health care for “those people.”
In reality, most poor people in the U.S. work every day that they can. They take the early bus. They serve and prepare our food in fast food restaurants. They staff the Wal-Marts where we buy our goods. And at the end of the week, they are paid so little that they are forced to use food stamps to be able to feed themselves. More poor people are white than black. They are disproportionately young and female.
So as we celebrate the remarkable triumphs of Nelson Mandela and his movement in South Africa, and of Dr. King and his movement in the U.S., we realize that much more remains to be done. They freed their peoples but could not win them equality. That remains the next chapter.
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