Posted on 09/18/2007 9:58:38 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Tuesday on Democrats seeking the 2008 nomination for president to give S.C. voters “something to vote for” when they go to the polls in January.
On a statewide tour to register new voters, Jackson said South Carolina will determine “who has momentum” in the primary when it votes Jan. 29.
Jackson sharply criticized presidential hopeful and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” in what Jackson said has been a tepid response to six black juveniles’ arrest on attempted-murder charges in Jena, La. Jackson, who also lives in Illinois, endorsed Obama in March, according to The Associated Press.
“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena,” Jackson said after an hourlong speech at Columbia’s historically black Benedict College.
“Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment,” said the iconic civil rights figure, who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 Selma civil rights movement and was with King at his 1968 assassination.
Jackson also said Obama, who consistently has placed second in state and national polls behind New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, must be “bolder” in his political positions if he is to erase Clinton’s lead.
Jackson is the only African-American ever to carry South Carolina in a presidential primary election.
Obama’s South Carolina campaign pointed to a statement it released last week in which Obama called on the local Louisiana district attorney to drop the excessive charges brought in the case.
“When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it’s a tragedy,” the Obama statement said. “It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions.”
Thousands from across the country, including some from Columbia, are expected to converge on the small town of Jena today to protest the “Jena 6” arrests.
Jackson told the 500 to 600 students in his audience at Benedict that “criminal injustice,” instead of a rope, is the pressing civil rights issue of their day, but that voting remained their strongest ally.
“Your fight is not about ropes, it’s about hope,” Jackson said, blasting the flood of guns and violence he said permeates many black communities.
Civil rights, he said, has become the counterculture of the day rather than the prevailing culture. “You can’t call on the Justice Department anymore; it’s not there.”
Jackson, who became only the second major black candidate to run for president, won five primaries in his 1984 bid for the office, then 11 primaries and nearly 7 million votes in his 1988 run.
He said the 2008 presidential candidates must speak most directly to the pressing S.C. issues of housing, high tuition costs, health care and a plan to end the war in Iraq.
“The candidates have got to speak to South Carolina,” said Jackson, who was traveling also to S.C. State University in Orangeburg and to Charleston Tuesday evening before wrapping up his registration drive tonight in Aiken.
A Greenville native, Jackson said he hoped to register thousands of new voters during the statewide swing, which began Saturday in Rock Hill.
“Their votes must equal change,” he said, referring to residents in a state where only 1 in 4 eligible voters go to the polls. “I want to make sure the right agenda is being voted on in 2008.”
His approach worked for senior mass-communications major Darius Dior Porcher, 21, who graduated from famed Scotts Branch High School in Clarendon County, which produced the Briggs v. Elliott school desegregation case of 1954.
“The main thing when you speak to students is to get them to move,” Porcher said. “He moved students today. He got them to come down to the floor and register to vote.”
It’s somthing to see, what former icons of the “civil rights movement” became once they realized how lucrative it is to perpetuate racial hatred.
Staying away from "blaxploitation" issues is the smartest thing Obama could do.
And Jesse Jackson is just a “House Negro” for the white limo liberals. They toss him some money in an attempt to keeps blacks on the liberal plantation. Bet hillary is giving him a lot of money under the table. Jesse does NOTHING without getting paid off.
Jesse, that is why you will never rise above being anything but a candidate.
Except he is not doing it.
JJ might as well be a paid employee of the Clintons (if he isn't already). This isn't about ideology, this is about power and money, and Obama hasn't gotten to the power brokers yet, even though he is a socialist through and through.
Hillary has the money and power right now, Obama does not.
Whats funny, is that awhile back I got a Obama fundraiser letter (and no, I am not a dem, or lib, why I got it, I have no idea), but it looked like it was written by a freeper, the way it bashed the clintons.
His entire campaing, and fundraising, is about bashing the clintons, the fact that he is doing okay, says something......it also tells you, there will be a 3rd party left wing candidate.
“Jesse, that is why you will never rise above being anything but a candidate.”
Guess Ol’ Jesse Jackson thinks acting black means making people think of an Amos ‘n Andy Minstrel show with attitude.
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I hadn't thought about that possibility. If this is true JJ would need to be super discrete or he would be damaged severely.
I don’t see why Jesse should be bothered by this, he doesn’t seem to mind that Hillary acts like she thinks she’s a man. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I can't believe that anyone listens to a damned thing he has to say anymore. If I owned a business that Jesse Jackson was trying to shake down, I'd personally come downstairs to stomp his old ass into the gutter.
I know Hillary can’t stand him, she can’t stand anyone who won’t just get out of the way. Too bad so many blacks support her, if only they knew what she was really about. She’s one of the biggest racists ever. Ironically, most liberals are some of the worst racists you ever want to meet. I guess it makes sense, they aren’t the most fair people in the world.
The Rev says: “Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment”
Wonder is he thinks this too is a defining moment?
The Untold Knoxville Murders
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20794
I could pick out many more “defining moments” for hypocrites are us.
Aren’t most candidates nothing more then a schlickmeister?
If she's hot, he probably would be.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/may/18/double-homicide-suspect-faces-new-charges/
I don’t agree with Obama on much, but he is far above Jesse Jackson, any way you measure things.
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