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Jesse Jackson Quotes

Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997.

He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. is his eldest son. Jackson hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000.



Wikipedia  

✵ 8. October 1941
Jesse Jackson photo
Jesse Jackson: 19   quotes 1   like

Famous Jesse Jackson Quotes

“When we divide, we cannot win. We must find common ground as the basis for survival and development and change, and growth.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention (July 19, 1988)

“We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.”

Jesse Jackson

As quoted in The Independent (9 June 1988)
Attributed

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved…. After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating.”

Jesse Jackson

Remarks at a meeting of Operation PUSH in Chicago (27 November 1993). Quoted in "Crime: New Frontier - Jesse Jackson Calls It Top Civil-Rights Issue" by Mary A. Johnson, 29 November 1993, Chicago Sun-Times (ellipsis in original). Partially quoted in "In America; A Sea Change On Crime" http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/opinion/in-america-a-sea-change-on-crime.html by Bob Herbert, 12 December 1993, New York Times.

“Jesse Jackson came by and said he wants to endorse me. I look on this with some doubt, because he generally makes his living criticizing people, not supporting them.”

Jesse Jackson

Jimmy Carter, diary entry of September 8, 1980. http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1009/carters_celebrity_encounters_page2.html
About

“Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people… There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view… That was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside of your right to concerned.”

Jesse Jackson

"How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue" in Right to Life News (January 1977) http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/%7Erauch/nvp/consistent/jackson.html

“That's all Hymie wants to talk about is Israel. Every time you go to Hymietown that's all they want to talk about.”

Jesse Jackson

Remark to Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman (25 January 1984), using an anti-semitic slur. See Coleman (10 April 1984) "A good reporter must put ethics ahead of other considerations" The Milwaukee Journal

Jesse Jackson Quotes about people

“See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based… I want to cut his nuts off. Barack, he's talking down to black people.”

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson, thinking his mic was off, on Obama's faith-based initiative, while on Fox News Channel; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5Aq6wPFis

“The Rainbow is making room for the Native American, the most exploited people of all, a people with the greatest moral claim amongst us. We support them as they seek the restoration of their ancient land and claim amongst us. We support them as they seek the restoration of land and water rights, as they seek to preserve their ancestral homeland and the beauty of a land that was once all theirs. They can never receive a fair share for all they have given us. They must finally have a fair chance to develop their great resources and to preserve their people and their culture.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

“This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

Jesse Jackson Quotes about making love

“The Rainbow is making room for small farmers. They have suffered tremendously under the Reagan regime. They will either receive 90 percent parity or 100 percent charity. We must address their concerns and make room for them. The Rainbow includes lesbians and gays. No American citizen ought be denied equal protection from the law.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

“America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

“No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born, but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which it is born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice. Only leadership -- that intangible combination of gifts, the discipline, information, circumstance, courage, timing, will and divine inspiration -- can lead us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. Leadership can mitigate the misery of our nation. Leadership can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

Jesse Jackson Quotes

“If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it because I am somebody!
Respect me! Protect me! Never neglect me!
I am somebody!
My mind is a pearl! I can learn anything in the world!
Nobody can save us, from us, for us, but us!
I can learn. It is possible.
I ought to learn. It is moral.
I must learn. It is imperative.”

Jesse Jackson

Speech at Anderson College in Anderson, Indiana (4 March 1979), quoted in Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith (1987) by David G. Myers and Malcolm A. Jeeves. The first sentence is a modification of a quote by Napoleon Hill: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

World , Learning , Heart

“I am somebody.
I am a somebody.
I am a child of God.
I may not be educated but I am somebody.
I may not have any money but I am somebody.
I may not eat steak every day but I am somebody.
I may not look the way you look but I am somebody.”

Jesse Jackson

Prayer during the Poor People's Campaign march in Washington, DC (21 May 1968)

Money , God , Education , Way

“We need a regime change in this country.… If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.”

Jesse Jackson

Speech against the Iraq War, reported in Brian Dakss (26 October 2002) "Shades Of The Sixties" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/26/attack/main527058.shtml CBS News

Change , Country

“You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you're qualified and hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive!”

Jesse Jackson

"Keep Hope Alive", speech at the Democratic National Convention (19 July 1988)

Hope

“Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right - but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention (July 19, 1988)

Fight

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lies only a few miles from us tonight. Tonight he must feel good as he looks down upon us. We sit here together, a rainbow, a coalition - the sons and daughters of slavemasters and the sons and daughters of slaves, sitting together around a common table, to decide the direction of our party and our country. His heart would be full tonight.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention (July 19, 1988)

Feeling , Daughters , Heart , Country

“We are co-partners in a long and rich religious history -- the Judeo-Christian traditions. Many blacks and Jews have a shared passion for social justice at home and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the spirit, inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to higher ground. We are bound by Moses and Jesus, but also connected with Islam and Mohammed. These three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were all born in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem.”

Jesse Jackson

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

Home , Peace , Religion , Justice

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