Sadly late but seeking hope and light, we honor the remarkable life of Rev. Jesse Lewis Jackson, who “stepped forward again and again” over six decades to fight for racial, social, and economic justice for millions of disenfranchised people. On the poignant “Homecoming,” his adult children pay a moving tribute to the passionate “prophetic voice” of the man of faith who “opened doors, kicked them in when necessary, so that others would not remain shut… A good fight was fought.”
On March 6 and 7, two gatherings of prayers, pride, tears, laughter, eulogies and gospel music are held in unique ways to celebrate the Long Lives. life life Jesse Jackson – pastor, activist, organizer, two-time presidential candidate, and head of the ever-evolving “Rainbow Coalition” for the poor and disenfranchised that sought to bridge every conceivable divide. When Jackson died in February at the age of 84, he was hailed as a “civil rights giant,” which he was. On April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Martin Luther King’s then-26-year-old aide was standing in the courtyard below the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel, speaking to King moments before he was shot and killed. Jackson continued King’s work at the SCLC until 1971, when he resigned amid leadership changes to form the SCLC become Rainbow PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) coalition.
But his work became broader than ever, a job For decades on multiple fronts for multiple social justice issues in America and around the world. He has pushed for voting rights, indigenous rights, Palestinian rights, welfare rights, renters’ rights, prisoners’ rights, and women’s and LGBT rights. Led boycotts, fair wage fights, and union organizing campaigns; He fought apartheid in South Africa and helped facilitate the release of American hostages in Iran. He spent years spreading the mantra, in his famous 1972 appearance Sesame Street With a group of colorful children,”I am someoneA simple message with great meaning that strikes its mark over and over again. “When I hear the words ‘I am someone,’” He said Daniel Russell Vincent, 13, attends March 6 People’s celebration With his parents, “It makes me think, you’re going to have something to do with this world.”
That official gathering, which lasted five hours – video here – Held in the 10,000-seat sanctuary of House of Hope Church on Chicago’s South Side. This campaign has attracted three former US presidents, black and white, from Maxine Waters (87) to Justin Pearson of Tennessee (31), pastors and prominent local figures, the presidents of Congo and South Africa, and thousands of ordinary Chicagoans who quit their jobs, drove hours, and stood in long lines “to show up and say what (Jesse) means to us, and more importantly what he stands for… Everyone here has a Jesse story.” Jackson.” “The city of Chicago shared it with the whole world,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said. “He was ours and we were his.” “This guy has been here my whole life saying, ‘I’ve got you,'” said Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side. “This is what Rev. Jesse Jackson means to us in Chicago.”
The speeches were eloquent. Bill Clinton: “He lived a big life. He lived with his head and his heart.” Kamala Harris: “He wasted no time waiting, even when the doors in front of him were closed and locked.” Joe Biden: “Jesse kept hope alive for us” Barack Obama, with the grandiose speech he relied on in moments of loss, spoke of the child of a poor single mother who was rejected by his father, and whose first political act was to lead seven black students into an all-white university library, where they sat, refused to leave and “were arrested for reading. Think about that. This is how freedom opens its doors.” In the book of Isaiah, he said: “God is looking for a messenger to guide a stubborn and rebellious people, so the Lord asks: Who will I send?” Isaiah answers: “Here I am, Lord, send me.” “Send me,” said Jesse, even as a young man. “The world is a little better.”
It recounted Jackson’s life, from his farming family to Chicago Theological Seminary to… Bread basket process To, after the murder of Martin Luther King, “a country tired of the idea of justice,” where “the speaker by his immense talents rose… above despair, and kept alive that righteous flame.” “When the poor and the disenfranchised needed a hero and the country needed healing, the Rev. Jesse Lewis Jackson stepped up again and again and said, ‘Send me,’ even as he was growing up in a separate and unequal world, a world designed to tell a child that he couldn’t go far… ‘I’m somebody,'” Obama declared. “He was talking about everyone who had been neglected, everyone who had been forgotten, everyone who had not been seen (and) not heard. In that sense he was expressing the essence of what our democracy should be, and the ideals in which it lies.” At the heart of the American experience.
Jackson also “paved the way for many to follow.” In 1984, when he was another child of a single mother and a recent college graduate “with good intentions but unsure how to serve,” and living in a “crappy apartment” with a rabbit-eared television, he saw Jackson “own” his first presidential debate. Drawn to Chicago as a young organizer, he went to PUSH headquarters on Saturday mornings “to listen and learn…and when Jesse called your name, you stood up straighter (to set the record straight).” Today, “it can be hard to hope,” when “every day you wake up to things you never thought were possible” — greed, bigotry, ignorance, cruelty — and “it’s tempting to just keep your head down and wait for the storm to pass.” “But this man inspires us to take a harder path,” he said, his voice cracking as he pointed to the casket. “He calls on us to be messengers of hope, to come forward and say: Send me… because if we don’t come forward, no one will.”
The next day, a special and emotional “homecoming” event took place at the Rainbow PUSH Alliance Headquarters Jackson attracted local leaders, allies, friends and family to celebrate as several of Jackson’s six adult children — all on stage, proof that he “raised up intelligent, God-fearing children” — delivered scathing speeches that often elicited tears and expressions of amusement from the lively crowd. (Full animated video here). Jackson had been in failing health for several years. His daughter Jacqueline, his primary caregiver, to thank The thousands of doctors, nurses, chefs, Uber drivers and other caregivers who helped him during that time. His son Youssef, who now leads the Rainbow PUSH coalition, pledged that their work would continue “in his name.” His eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., who sought to tell audiences “who my father is” and often cried as he did so, wove a powerful and complex story. tale That went from light to dark and back again.
He added: “We are burying our father today.” Announce With feeling, before Hailing hHe is the “consistent prophetic voice” of the Father. “Who was Jesse Jackson?” he asked. He added, “For the political class that occupied most of his time, he was a stranger waiting for a response to a phone call to remind them of the urgency of the hour.” At the same time, criticizing speeches of the previous day that portrayed his father in purely political terms, he insisted that as a Baptist minister and man of faith he “had a tense relationship with the political system,” not on the basis of race or party but “on its unwavering defense of the dispossessed, the damned, the dispossessed, and the disrespected.” As such, he demanded solutions “deeply rooted in his Christian faith,” in his “own sense of urgency,” and in “the daily lives of[those]whom he sought to exalt… He took up the ministry from Sunday morning, and handed it over to the people.”
He noted that he was also a “funny, interesting guy.” When he was born, his father was doing voter registration work in Selma, and he was so amazed by his son’s birth that he “almost named me Selma.” But there were dark times too: “It wasn’t easy being Jesse – that was Jesse Jackson’s name.” The former congressman, Jackson Jr., suffered from bipolar depression and ended up in prison after rigging a 2013 election campaign. Belief He ended his political career, which lasted 17 years. And he’s crying described Feeling desperate “in the hole,” he asks his father to “get me out of here,” and his father urges him, “Hold your head up, son.” (Jackson Sr. sought a pardon from Biden, who refused.) In his painful and heartfelt eulogy, Jackson Jr. described his father as a transformative figure to whom “we turned to in the lowest hours of our lives… We are better because he lived.”
This was echoed by his brother and U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who gave an impassioned speech Named Their father is “a miracle, a special event, a force of nature (that) cannot be denied.” He praised the “iterations of Jesse Jackson Sr. we’ve seen… He was born to be a nobody, he was too tall to be hidden, too poor to be included, too black to be respected, too bold to be ignored… Look at what God has done.” Above all, he said that his father was not a politician but a “public servant.” The measure of his humanity: “Only someone who claimed to be something greater than himself could stand up for people who didn’t even know their names. My father tried to help someone, to love someone, to make every child know that he was someone. My father wanted to make sure that the world he was leaving was better than the world he was born into. He tried to make the crooked path straight.”
Jesse Louis Jackson was, of course, fully human. For decades, he tried hard, and sometimes failed. But his son said, “He respected the ideals of the Constitution more than any of the 25 slaveholders who hypocritically signed up to it, and he believed in America more than America believed in itself.” Calling out his father’s many mentors – Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Nehru, Gandhi, Castro, and all freedom fighters – Jonathan said: “We have not forgotten, and we will continue to fight as peacemakers, for civil rights, for equality, diversity, and inclusion.” Get up, Jesse, get up. Amidst this rule, and the horrific human scum that now inhabits our national landscape and exercises a terrible power over it, here lived a great man. His mercy, peace and strength.
An attendee at the popular celebration of the Rev. Jesse Jackson holds a program bearing his imagePhotography by Kevon Jackson
Source link
