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Rainbow/PUSH Annual Convention
"The Challenge to Build a More Perfect Union"
Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. -- Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
July, 2004

Signs of the Times: The Challenge to Build a More Perfect Union

   Today, as we meet here with the Rainbow/PUSH family, we reflect on the milestones of our civil rights history: 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education; 40 year since the Voting Rights Act, nearly 40 since the Civil Rights Act and the Selma march. 20 years since our historic run for the presidency in 1984.

   Our history is full of twists and turns, and winding roads, but history as we know it, always bends towards justice.

   But these past years there has been a different wind blowing.

   **   Wal Mart: the largest company in the world, pushing down wages and health care benefits, and now the target of a major discrimination lawsuit filed by women workers.

   It's a sign of the times.

   ** The merger of JP Morgan Chase and Bank One, a $60 billion merger, with a $100 million in transaction fees going to financial services and law firms, but not a single Black firm involved in the deal.

   A sign of the times.

   Bush's war of choice in Iraq based on lies and distortions, with $200 billion spent, creating more enemies than allies, soldiers and citizens dying each day, and no end in sight.

   A sign of the times.

   A record surplus in 2000 turned into record deficits, 3 million jobs lost. Tax breaks for the wealthy and job cuts for working families. A recovery with jobs that pay less with fewer benefits.

   A sign of the times.

   More Black men in prison than in college in every state; states turning the prison industrial complex into booming private industries with Blacks once again the commodity.

   A sign of the times.

   An administration that has not met one time with civil rights organizations or labor in three years, and a Justice Department with a closed door policy, and a closed ear to civil rights.

   A sign of the times.

   I tell you today, my friends, we need a change. We need new leadership and a new direction.   The stakes in November have never been higher.

What do we want

   I am convinced that we must return to our roots, to find our power and protect our interests.   But first we must define WHAT we want.

   The Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish. It further says a leader should not blow a trumpet with an uncertain sound. It is making the case for a mission statement.

   The ideological right in control of our nation knows what it wants.

   The rightwing fights for a series of constitutional amendments. They intend to have their ideology protected by law. They intend to push the ideology of the Confederacy and continue to challenge the vision of the Union.

   They have a blind obsession with the 2nd amendment, and the NRA wants to remove the ban on assault weapons/AK 47's and Uzi's in September, during a time of national security alert. They want a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. They want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. They want a balanced budget amendment requiring _ of the Congress to raise taxes. They focus on using their power to get laws that protect their vision of America, no matter who the leader is in a certain season.

   In this competing vision of America, we choose the Union over the Confederacy. We chose a simple but comprehensive plan to Make America a More Perfect Union. WHAT DO WE WANT?

   At the center of our new progressive agenda is the passage of a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees the individual, federal right to vote, which should be part of the Democratic Party platform. Today, we merely have a STATES' right to vote -- 50 state elections with odd and uneven machinery that left 2 million votes -- and 1 million Black votes -- discounted in 2000. 179,000 votes were not counted at all in Florida; 54% of those were Black.

   Let me say that one more time. In 2000, there were 2 million votes that went UNCOUNTED -- not just in Florida but around the country and right here in Cook County. And 1 MILLION uncounted Black votes. The ballots 'spoiled' not because of lack of refrigeration, they were just locked out of the count.

   WHAT DO WE WANT? We want an amendment to the constitution to guarantee workers the right to organize without interference. We want a Department of Labor and NLRB that enforces the law.

   We want to make health care a human right -- a Constitutional Amendment to equal high quality health care for every individual America.

    WHAT DO WE WANT? We want an amendment to the Constitution to guarantee equal high quality public education for every American, whether in Appalachia, Alabama, California or New York. We need environmental protection, a Constitutional right to breathe free -- with drinkable water not polluted by corporate greed.

   Workers deserve an even playing field, just as athletes do in the athletic Olympics. We will do well in Athens, Greece, because the field is even, the rules are public and the goals are clear. When Shaq plays Yao Ming, it's a fair contest because the playing field is even.

Progressive Southern Strategy "Based on the Base"

   This is the unfinished business of the civil rights movement. Not "back in the civil rights days" but TODAY. But what is different today, is that WE HAVE THE POWER, we have the ability to control our own destiny.

   We need a progressive southern strategy based on our strength and base.

                Many pundits and politicians no longer see the importance of the South. President Bush is depending on the conservative South to return him to office. But the South, I tell you, is unnaturally conservative. The South is the poorest region in our nation and, therefore, has the least to conserve.

   Four decades after the Selma march, there are still 8 to 10 million African Americans are still not registered to vote: 936,000 unregistered in NY; 600,000 unregistered Georgia; 550,00 in Texas. 530, 000 in North Carolina. 380,000 unregistered in Illinois; 500,000 in New Jersey; 475,000 in Virginia; in Florida, 600,000 unregistered, 400,000 in Mississippi; 300,000 in South Carolina. 300,000 unregistered in Louisiana. Nearly a million in New York. 215,000 in Alabama.   In South Carolina's last major election, 288,000 African Americans did not vote, and only 278,000 did. More Blacks didn't vote, than did. And Democrats lost that race by 40,000 votes...and there are still 300,000 unregistered voters in that state.

   Last year in Louisiana, Landrieu won on the strength of the Black vote -- led by Senator Cleo Fields - even though the right wing's national apparatus focused solely on this race, the only one to take place on that day. Landrieu started with a "drive by campaign," waving at our community but not engaging. So Cleo put out a bumper sticker saying, "don't respect us, don't expect us." We met with Senator Landrieu and got an understanding, the conflict was resolved and Landrieu won.

   In the last campaign, 75,000 jobs lost drowned out the race issue in South Carolina. In Alabama, there are 250,000 Blacks still unregistered; the last governor won by just 10,000 votes.

   That's why I make the case for registering and empowering the Black vote, and for winning back the nation on a progressive Southern strategy "based on our base." The formula is straight and simple: register new Black and Latino and union voters; strengthen their alliance with labor; focus a message of jobs, health care and shared economic security; and increase voter turn out.

   That was our strategy in 1984 and 1988, bottom up, grass roots mobilization and organizing.

Expand the Center

   There is a prevailing political equation: there's 40% to the right; 40% to the left, and 20% in the center. Parties compete for the center "swing vote."

   But this equation is not static. It must change. Activism, registration and participation can expand the center.

   Lest us not forget, slavery lasted 246 years. Abolition was not in the center. We could not legally vote, we were not in the center. For the 89 years to end Jim Crow, win Civil Rights, we were outside of the center. In the 1960 convention that nominated JFK, the civil rights agenda was outside of the center. The 1964 convention in Atlantic City and the movement to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was outside of the center.

   But the sit-ins, protests, and activism of the 60's expanded the center. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the march from Selma, the anti-war movement, expanded the center.

   But our base is sometimes dismissed as "not being in the center," and we are pushed to the margins. But if we are energized, we can change the entire equation. In our 1984 campaign, we registered 2 million new voters formerly in the margins. We expanded the center and returned the Senate to Democrats in 1986. Our 1988 campaign brought us Mayor Dave Dinkins in New York, Governor Wilder in Virginia and countless others who became empowered and elected in cities, counties, and states across the nation. Remember, Bush and Dole got more white votes than Clinton; Clinton got more White, Black, Brown and Asian votes than they did...and he won.

   Those in the margins are the key to our destiny, a one big tent America -- challenging right wing control of our country. The dream of one big tent America is within reach. This is the challenge of our political parties, to expand the center and be inclusive. I said in San Francisco 20 years ago,

   "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.

                We are gathered here to expand, unify, direct, and inspire our nation to fulfill this mission...to motive, register and mobilize the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief. They have voted in record numbers. We have invested our faith, hope, and trust that they have in us. Now, parties and candidates must send them a signal that we care."

A program of action

      Today, just as true as it was 20 years ago in San Francisco, we issue a call of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing, and unity. We can win. 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.    WE CAN WIN.

   So where do we go from here.

   First, fighting the Wal-Mart factor undermining our economy and national health:

   We beat Wal-Mart in Inglewood, CA, and cities across America and unions around the nation are waging the battle against the Wal-Martiziation of the economy -- cheap wages at home and slave wages abroad; depressing health care and worker benefits; violating labor law.

   Wal-Mart, with its right to work ideology, suppresses wages and offers few benefits, was able to come to Chicago, a union town, in part because they went across the South untouched and unchallenged.

   Wal-Mart is part of the globalization of capital. But if you globalize capital, you must globalize labor rights, environmental rights, women's and children's rights. The right to affordable medicine and clean drinkable water.

   Wal-Mart now faces a huge sex discrimination suit. In matters of race and trade exploitation, they are just as vulnerable. If we fight to even the playing field for the American worker, and see the necessity of our Black-Brown-White, working class coalition, we will WIN and deserve to win.

   Secondly, Appalachia.   We just took a tour through Appalachia June 6-9 with Cecil Roberts of the UMWA, ASFCME and CBTU, Steel workers, Bricklayers and Electrical Workers. I stayed in the homes of proud unemployed miners, and pensioners with Black Lung disease, who are in a state of increasing desperation.

   Why Appalachia? It allows us to de-racialize the debate -- contrary to stereotypes, most poor people are not Black or Brown, they are white, female, young and underserved. They too must be under one big tent of protection. So we put the agenda of reputable working poor people in the national equation. Coal miners who energize the nation, steel workers who built the nation, teachers who teach the nation, bus drivers that drive the nation. What did we find? 32 steel mills have been closed. A coal miner dies every six hours of Black Lung Disease. Children take 2 _ hour buses to school, each way, to schools built in the 1930's.   Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

   We are going back to Appalachia on Labor Day weekend: Rainbow, and Labor and Willie Nelson, to Reinvest in America and Put America Back to Work. We must never surrender that territory of working poor people again. If we cut that military budget without cutting our defense, and use that money to rebuild bridges and put steel workers back to work, and use that money and provide jobs for our cities, and use that money to build schools and pay teachers and educate our children and build hospitals and train doctors and train nurses, the whole nation will come running to us.

   I further appeal to us to urge Senator Kerry to demand a debate in Appalachia. And force the national debate on the plight of working poor people and ex-workers.

   Thirdly, we're going back to Florida in July, the scene of the crime, to convene our leadership to strategize on protecting the mobilizing the vote. And then to the Democratic Convention in Boston where Rainbow delegates and leaders will reunite, and on to protest in New York in August. From Florida to Louisiana, we will travel the South to mobilize our base, expand the center and win in November. In 2000 a voter calamity of enormous proportions occurred. This time we will be prepared to protect our vote and make sure that every vote is counted. This November we will remember!

   We must explore building a structure that will allow us to register voters, deliver for voters and negotiate for their interests. All too often these voters are not under the tent. They are not in the center. They are outside. Their interests -- civil rights, civil liberties, peace, and fair trade policy -- are not a part of the discussion. We must build a vehicle to get them to the table for negotiation and resolution.

   Fourthly, we must review our covenant with corporate America, and move the equation from "diversity" to equity and parity. Generational inheritance have left distributorships, franchises, land and capital in the hands of the few, and left us fundamentally outside of the equation. Excellence and effort matter; but inheritance and access to capital matter even more.

   John Deere was founded in 1837, 27 years before slavery ended. Yet even today, John Deere does not have a single African American owned franchise. They may have some diversity in their employees, but NO INCLUSION in their ownership/franchise base. This same pattern holds true in the food and beverage industry, the fast food industry, auto dealerships -- we do not have an equitable, fair share. And we must REDEFINE this relationship.

   Fifty, sentencing guidelines are now being exposed as being too harsh and too rigid, with no effect on the crime rate. "Crime and Time" don't correspond, only filling our prisons with youth, mainly Black and Brown.
   Sixth, we will challenge the predatory, exorbitant phone service fees charged to inmates by states, counties, sheriff's departments who control the prison telephone systems. They have a monopoly. In Louisiana for example, the state brings in $6 million a year from prison based telephone services.

   We also challenge the new telecom scheme supported by Bush, Powell and the FCC which will drive out competition and small businesses and ultimately raise rates.

   Seventh, we will challenge predatory practices in the financial services, insurance, auto and other industries. We continue to work harder, for less. Pay more, for less. Even college degrees are worth less. We live under stress and don't live as long.

Clear choices

   I would make this case today: we value a victory in November. We the people can win. We must reject this Hollywood notion of organized expressions of congeniality and rich young rulers who dress casually and search for a phrase or two to identify with the common people.    Leadership must be about values and priorities. The Bible warns us to beware of wolves in sheep's clothing who come smiling but have violent appetites. It warns against us a bush that is a barren victory that has leaves but not fruit. Let's look at our choices, our alternatives and be not deceived.

   1.    Iraq: The US is spinning into global isolation. The US is losing moral authority and credibility in the world, choosing discredited Chalabi and some Iraqi exiles over Hans Blix, the UN and the advice of our friends in Germany, France and Russia. It was wrong to abuse the power and mislead the nation with lies and distortions.

   Clear choices.

   We have lost nearly 900 lives of the poor and the young. $200 billion costs and rising. We have a plan to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure but not for America. We are creating more enemies than allies. We are sinking in the sand. We need an administration that shifts from a rhythm of preemptive strike, invasion, occupation and conquest....to coalition, partnerships, and withdrawal.

   Clear choices.

   And today's supposed "transfer of power" does nothing to change this reality. This Council is not derived from the people. It is appointed by the CIA, little more than a steering committee called a "governing council." The masses being led by the clerics, the military and the economic spoils are still being controlled by the U.S.   It does little to change reality on the ground. Our troops are still in grave danger, without adequate resources or a clear mission.

   We went in virtually alone; Bush's pride will not allow a change from a failed course.   We need new beginnings.

   You have clear choices in November.

   4.   Bush's tax cut, top down, rather than reinvest, bottom up, has bankrupted the nation. We have gone from a projected $5.8 trillion surplus, to a $600 billion deficit and sinking, bankrupting social security along the way.

   Clear choices.

   5.   A tax cut for the top 1% that has kicked 300,000 poor children out of their after school programs, 23,000 uniformed officers off the street, and 140,000 unemployed workers out of their job training programs.

   Clear choices.

   5.   An administration and Justice Department with a closed door policy to labor and civil rights, and a hostile agenda violating civil liberties.

   Clear choices.

   6.   An administration that appoints judges who are anti-labor and anti-civil rights. One day it puts up picture of Dr. King in the White House one day and then the next day it sends its lawyers to try to kill affirmative action. One day it lays a wreath at Dr. King's gravesite, and the next day it appoints rightwing Pickering to the bench.

   Clear choices.

   7.   On the issue of Judgment on patriotism and risk: one has a military record of risk and engagement, the other has a record of creative absence. One was guiding a PT boat, leading his troops under fire; the other was taking private swimming lessons in the breeze.

   Clear choices.

   8.   One sees America through a key hole and sees about 1% - one sees America thru an open door and sees the rest of us.

   9.   Kerry says he will review bad trade policy, Bush and his Secretary of Treasury brags about it as being acceptable.

   The choice is not about anybody but the administration; it's about an alternative to its point of view.

   We have clear choices in November, and you have the right and power to determine the direction of our nation.

20 years since the Rainbow Coalition 1984 Campaign: changing the equation

   In all of this I reflect on the twenty years since the Rainbow Coalition run for the presidency in 1984. We must build an independent voter infrastructure to register, deliver for voters, expand the center, and pass a constitutional amending affirming the federal, individual right to vote.

   Many voters never show up because their issues are not addressed and there is no promise of delivery. Blind patriotism does not motivate them to fight for a promise never made, or seldom kept.

                We are often reminded that we live in a great nation -- and we do. But it can be greater still. Rainbow/PUSH is mandating a new definition of greatness. We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but the manger up. Jesus said that we should not be judged by the bark we wear but by the fruit that we bear. Jesus said that we must measure greatness by how we treat the least of these.

   If we lift up a program to feed the hungry, they'll come running; if we lift up a program to study war no more, our youth will come running; if we lift up a program Reinvest in America and Put America back to work, and an alternative to welfare and despair, they will come working.

   The Black vote can change the equation. If energized it can initiate change and change the nation. In spite of the odds and our history, what is phenomenal today is the Black vote can determine its destiny, determine the destiny of labor, determine the direction of the parties, the Courts, economic policy, Africa and global affairs.

   In the face of oppression the only question is, "how do we respond?" We can resist and empower, or internalize our pain and accept our place in the systems' low expectations of us.

   We choose to fight back. Create new space for a new place in our nation's drive to become a more perfect union. I would argue that the oppressor is not likely to change its profitable ways. The burden is upon US, the oppressed, to initiate, fight for, and demand change. We may not be responsible for being down, but we must be responsible for getting up. Those behind and even shackled, must run faster and be more determined.

   Today, with the power we have earned over the last 50 years through struggles and martyrdom, we must fight self-destructive tendencies and cynicism. We must choose the high road of hope and avoid the low road of high risk behavior. If we maximize and use our strength and power, and vote to our fullest and build coalitions, we can beat the odds, negating cynics and become dream makers with the power to revive our will to non-negotiable dignity.

   And for many of you who want to fight obesity and reduce health care risk and blocked arteries and strokes, and complications that affect your future and your family, I recommend a low CARB diet.

No Cheney. No Ashcroft. No Rumsfeld. No Bush.

They lied, people died. In November, we decide. There are clear choices this November and the choice is in your hands.

We Can Win

                As we hold our convention this week, we are ready to go back across this nation -- to Florida, to Boston, New York, Louisiana, to Michigan and Wisconsin, all across the nation.

                Today, I leave you with the same words spoken in San Francisco July 17, 1984.

   "We leave this place looking for the sunny side because there's a brighter side somewhere. I'm more convinced than ever that we can win. We will vault up the rough side of the mountain. We can win. I just want young America to do me one favor, just one favor. Exercise the right to dream. You must face reality -- that which is.

   But then dream of a reality that ought to be -- that must be. Live beyond the pain of reality with the dream of a bright tomorrow. Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress. Use love to motivate you and obligate you to serve the human family."

We have the faith and God has the power to see us through. March on till victory is won.

Thank you very much. Keep Hope Alive.