Jesse Jackson Quotes & Sayings

Most poor people are not on welfare ... I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change beds you slept in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day ... — Jesse Jackson

In tough economic times, desperate people do desperate things, and the abortion rate goes up. — Jesse Jackson

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums. — Jesse Jackson

My very first recollection of life on earth was waking up in bed with my mother, and she was showing me a picture of my father, Charles Jackson, with a group of soldiers. — Jesse Jackson

The laws are stacked for the wealthy. — Jesse Jackson

You can be out of slavery and have the right to vote, but unless you have access to capital, industry and technology, you can't fulfill your dreams. — Jesse Jackson

When blacks are unemployed, they are considered lazy and apathetic. When whites are unemployed, it's considered a depression. — Jesse Jackson

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet. — Jesse Jackson

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised. — Jesse Jackson

Semi-automatic weapons are not just about gun control, they're about national security. You know that these weapons can shoot down airplanes, they can blow up railroads. This is really a whole national security issue. — Jesse Jackson

We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work. — Jesse Jackson

When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through. — Jesse Jackson

Great things happen in small places. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville. — Jesse Jackson

I was extended secret service protection during my presidential run in 1984, when I received the most death threats ever made toward a candidate. — Jesse Jackson

Your children need your presence more than your presents. — Jesse Jackson

The only justification for ever looking down on somebody is to pick them up. — Jesse Jackson

Workers, black and white, need some kind of international affirmative action to protect them from unfair competition with unorganized or slave labor abroad and unfair competition with robots at home. — Jesse Jackson

We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We will run the country. — Jesse Jackson

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart. — Jesse Jackson

At least the politicians are accountable to the voters. — Jesse Jackson

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

A man who cannot be enticed by money or intimidated by the threat of jail or death has two of the strongest weapons that anyone has to offer. — Jesse Jackson

I know how to run a nationally paced campaign. — Jesse Jackson

I came to the conclusion that in order to end racial barriers, I needed to run for the office of the president and put forth an agenda of social justice and world peace. In addition, I concluded that someone needed to run and challenge the liberal orthodoxy. — Jesse Jackson

Any attempt to dilute my support for Sen. Obama will not succeed. — Jesse Jackson

George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead. — Jesse Jackson

The question becomes what kind of coalition can we build that will make a transition and empower the people of Iraq? The American soldiers' presence there is an act of provocation. There's a big red ball on the back of every American soldier in that country, so our being there contributes to the crisis, it does not resolve the crisis. — Jesse Jackson

The charges that I am anti-Semitic are simply erroneous, felonious, and unceremonious. In fact, when I need a doctor, I always look for one with a Jewish name. — Jesse Jackson

When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression. — Jesse Jackson

The white Christian church never raised to the heights of Christ. It stayed within the limit of culture. — Jesse Jackson

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted. — Jesse Jackson

Fighting disparities is very significant. — Jesse Jackson

If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds. — Jesse Jackson

That Obama I would like to cut his nuts off. — Jesse Jackson

Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters. — Jesse Jackson

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change. — Jesse Jackson

We've been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are. — Jesse Jackson

I preach nonviolence because it's the better alternative. — Jesse Jackson

We must face the No. 1 critical issue of our day. It is youth crime in general and black-on-black crime in particular. 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

Surrender had played out for good with me. — Jesse Jackson

I must oppose the use of federal funds for a policy of killing infants. — Jesse Jackson

Look at the coded language the Right is using against President Barack Obama. Openly calling him a liar in Congress, saying he is 'not a Christian, he was not born here, he is not one of us.' That makes addressing such issues trickier for the first African-American in the White House. — Jesse Jackson

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down. — Jesse Jackson

For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before. — Jesse Jackson

Iraq will drive American agenda for a long time because Iraq policy has so damaged America in the Middle East region, left us isolated. We are there now by brute strength, we are not there because we are desired. — Jesse Jackson

I want to cut his nuts off. — Jesse Jackson

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other. — Jesse Jackson

Gangs are a group reaction to helplessness. — Jesse Jackson

America is not like a blanket- one piece of unbroken cloth. America is more like a quilt- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven together by a common thread. — Jesse Jackson

We need a regime change in this country ... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority. — Jesse Jackson

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things. — Jesse Jackson

The coffers are full of money and equipment for the Ferguson Police and the Missouri National Guard to put down a potential uprising, but no money for actually uplifting the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and around the nation. — Jesse Jackson

There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps ... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved. — Jesse Jackson

In Afghanistan, there is a plan to build democracy; hundreds of thousands of troops are protecting it. There is a plan to rebuild and reconstruct there. But many thousands of Americans die from violence and poverty every year and we don't have a plan for reconstruction at home. — Jesse Jackson

Life has its dimensions in the mysterious. — Jesse Jackson

The ground is no place for a champion. The ground is no place that I will wallow on. — Jesse Jackson

When we do in Grenada what the Soviet Union did in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, we lose moral authority and credibility. — Jesse Jackson

Those who have the most wealth and the most property, their children have the first, the best, and the most. — Jesse Jackson

If you try you may fail, if you don't try you're guaranteed to fail. — Jesse Jackson

Those companies that don't see the black and brown communities are missing, out of their closed eye, talent, which leads to money and growth. When baseball, football and basketball couldn't see the field, they missed talent and growth. The same is true in the tech industry. — Jesse Jackson

We campaigned across the South ... without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got north to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan, and then Mrs. Ferraro ... Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history. — Jesse Jackson

Many kids come out of college, they have a credit card and a diploma. They don't know how to buy a house or a car or health insurance or life insurance. They do not know basic microeconomics. — Jesse Jackson

We must give the American worker the first option of ownership. — Jesse Jackson

I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it's time for you to send it back to me - toasted and buttered on both sides. — Jesse Jackson

Each time a barrier falls for one person, the doors of opportunity open wider for every other American. — Jesse Jackson

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams. — Jesse Jackson

Unfortunate. Unfortunate. Sometimes people struggling for freedom lose their way. — Jesse Jackson

Few would deny that blacks have become very dominant in athletics: football, basketball, track, now dominant in tennis and dominant in golf. — Jesse Jackson

I know they are all environmentalists. I heard a lot of my speeches recycled. — Jesse Jackson

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow
red, yellow, brown, black and white
and we're all precious in God's sight. — Jesse Jackson

Music of all arts should be expansive and inclusive. — Jesse Jackson

We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. — Jesse Jackson

I am a journalist. — Jesse Jackson

Many are observing Ferguson and witnessing the anger, demonstrations, looting and vandalism and calling for quiet. But quiet isn't enough. The absence of noise isn't the presence of justice - and we must demand justice in Ferguson and the other 'Fergusons' around America. — Jesse Jackson

I'm too mature to be angry. — Jesse Jackson

If I were a white candidate, I'd have won the Democratic nomination. — Jesse Jackson

Choose the human race over the nuclear race. Bury the weapons and don't burn the people. — Jesse Jackson

Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving. — Jesse Jackson

When God rang the bell that ended the fight, the world cried out for one more round. — Jesse Jackson

From seeds of his body blossomed the flower that liberated a people and touched the soul of a nation. — Jesse Jackson

Most blacks will argue that they excel because of hard work, because of intellect, determination, sweat, blood, tears and risk. — Jesse Jackson

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams. — Jesse Jackson

In order for an ideal to become a reality, there must be a person, a personality to translate it. — Jesse Jackson

When it came to the division of power, we did not get from the Jews the slice of cake we deserved ... the Jews do not share with us control of wealth, broadcasting stations and other centers of power. — Jesse Jackson

Never look down on people unless you are helping them up. — Jesse Jackson

Sometimes arrogance makes us overreach. George Bush Jr. often tries to suggest the leaders of other countries, and it is just not good diplomacy. — Jesse Jackson

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites
rather than fighting for jobs or education
fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior. — Jesse Jackson

Black men of integrity cannot make a deal with a politician and leave out the poor of the nation, all God's children. — Jesse Jackson

We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up. — Jesse Jackson

I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true. — Jesse Jackson

If I can make it, you can make it. — Jesse Jackson

The burden of being black is that you have to be superior just to be equal. But the glory of it is that, once you achieve, you have achieved, indeed. — Jesse Jackson

Our premise is that inclusion leads to growth. So for those who are locked out, they lose development, and those who are in power lose market and growth. — Jesse Jackson

It'll be a great day when the seniors have all the baseball caps they need and the Pentagon bombs Gilligan's Island. — Jesse Jackson

Capitalism without capital is just an ism. — Jesse Jackson

When they wrote the Constitution, only white male landowners had the right to vote. — Jesse Jackson

Obama used to be a community organizer. He knows how to build communities. — Jesse Jackson

Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. And in the end, faith will not disappoint. Faith, hope, and dreams will prevail ... Our time has come. Our time has come. Our time has come. — Jesse Jackson

Hold your head high, stick your chest out. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive. — Jesse Jackson

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy. — Jesse Jackson