At UM-St. Louis last week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to a predominantly African-American audience of approximately one thousand about high finance.
He discussed the $350 billion from TARP (Trouble Assets Relief Program) to banks that the government cannot completely account for and the $50 billion that accused investor Bernie Madoff stashed into a proverbial black hole, probably never to be seen again.
His words reverberated and resonated when he said, “But they can find a welfare cheat.”
Jackson, 67, spoke at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center last Wednesday evening, February 25, as part of African-American History Month.
“Congress has no honor and no independence,” he said. “Congressional oversight did not do its job.”
Jackson sought to convey that there are deep structural impediments in the system that need to be corrected. “The Titanic did not sink because of the wind blowing the deck chairs,” he said. “Water came in from the bottom.”
Jackson talked about double standards, such as cocaine sentencing disparities, where possession of five grams of crack usually leads to long prison sentences and cocaine possession usually results in probation.
“There are 2.5 million people in prison and one million are African-American, 500,000 are Latino,” he said.
“So most in prison are black, brown and poor. There is a jail industry; two are part of the stock exchange.”
Appealing to leaders’ sense of morality, he said, “Law and culture must be protected by ethics and morality. Slavery was legal, child labor was legal, but it was not moral.”
Reflecting on the history of the African-American civil rights struggle, he chronicled three dramatic events that happened on the same calendar day.
On August 28, 1955, Emmet Till was lynched in Mississippi. On August 28, 1963, Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. And August 28, 2008, Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for the presidential Democratic nomination.
Though progress has been made, he said, “We cannot stop. We have not reached the end zone. We have new freedom, but not new equality.”
He said he cried in Chicago’s Grant Park when Obama spoke as the first African-American to become president, “because of my sense of memory.” This was important for him to mention, as critics have attempted to mischaracterize it.
“But you can’t go forward looking backwards,” he said. “We can’t be stuck on November 4, 2008.”
While conservatives may loathe Jackson, freedom fighters adore him. His contributions to African-American progress are unparalleled in contemporary history, as a prickly voice of conscience who has been on the national and world scene for more than four decades.
Gwen Deloach-Packnett, director, Office of Multicultural Relations, organized the program. Ida Goodwin Woolfolk, civic leader, moderated.
Malaika Horne, Ph.D., is director of the Executive Leadership Institute in the College of Business at UMSL.
