Jesse Jackson Quotes

I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn’t born in me.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.

Black and Jewish leaders have been a coalition of conscience.

You know, people’d always ask ‘Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?’ They never seen the house I’m running from.

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.

People always grow and mature.

In many ways Africa subsidised America and Europe’s development.

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.

I had gained a greater appreciation of hearing the concerns of woman, doctors, and so many others.

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

So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent.

A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.

There is no power in cynicism. There is no forward thrust in cynicism.

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.

Keep hope alive!

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

Those who write the editorials and those who write the columns, they simply are unaccountable. They’re free to impose their cultural politics in the name of freedom of the press.

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

You may choose your mate, but you cannot deny someone else the right to choose their mate.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.

At the end of the day, we’re defined by our predicament, not by the sides of town.

If the American people in a matter of months can love the people of Kuwait, whom they have not seen, they can love the people of our nation’s capital just as well.

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

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.

The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president.

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.

People internalize, from the jail to student loan debt, to credit card debt, to unemployment to the whole collective. It manifests itself in many ways, in people’s home lives, domestic stuff.

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

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

It is a historical error for those who were not there to just refer to August 28th as ‘I Have a Dream’ speech day. That is a real disservice to those who were there. It was a sad day. It was not a celebration environment.

If you don’t feel apologetic for slavery, if you don’t feel apologetic for colonialism, if you feel proud of it then say that.

At the end of the day, we’re defined by our predicament, not by the sides of town.

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.

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

Who lives long and who dies prematurely, is the defining issue of our time. And I submit to you, there’s a significant race dimension, it is basically class-driven.

I remember being taught my place.

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

The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president. Obama has that voice. It has to be used.

The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.

Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.

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

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

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

Fighting disparities is very significant.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent. One big tent. And on that big tent you have four basic promises: equal protection under the law, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair share.

There’s great disparity between who goes to college and who goes to jail. Who lives long and who dies prematurely, is the defining issue of our time. And I submit to you, there’s a significant race dimension, it is basically class-driven.

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.

I know how to run a nationally paced campaign.

I have worked hard to build relationships between Jewish people and black people.

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.

Republicans are the party of ‘no,’ and Democrats are the party of ‘don’t know’ because it hasn’t fought for bold ideas, policies, or plans to turn us in a new direction.

The law protects you from being abused. It doesn’t threaten your lifestyle for someone else to have the right to exhibit their lifestyle.

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.

We’ve removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

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

The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

So many bright stars, bright in life, burn out quickly.

If you run, you might lose. If you don’t run, you’re guaranteed to lose.

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

Conservatives and liberals can find common ground.

I want to make America better!

When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that’s under economic assault and a poor community that’s getting bigger, they’re talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there’s a ‘Ferguson’ near you.

Negroes’ problem is that they do not have their egos. That’s why our churches end up having a white service, because our preacher is not arrogant enough to take God’s word, so he have to go and get some white fellow’s agenda and put it in his church.

While I’ve spent a lot of quality time with my children, perhaps it’s not been enough.

When you create more small businesses, you create small entrepreneurship. Out of that comes self-determination and employment.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

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

I had to steal to survive.

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.

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

Many have fought for and even lost their lives to end segregation, to win the right to vote. It disappoints me to now have to cajole people to register and to vote.

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

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

If you don’t know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

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

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

There have been more people disenfranchised in Washington than there have been in Kuwait.

Music of all arts should be expansive and inclusive.

Humanitarian appeals always help. They penetrate deeper than political tradeoffs.

America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.

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.

So here we are today with a new conversation. When University of Georgia plays Georgia Tech, it’s uniform color versus skin color. We have – we’ve overcome that level of racial fear.

Ronald Reagan was older than I was when he ran for president.

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

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

If you think black people have a motivation problem, open up a Wal-Mart and advertise a thousand jobs. Watch 5,000 people show up.