Here is a video clip excerpt from the first six
minutes of Jackson's 1984 Address to the DNC. Scroll
down for the full transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Jesse Jackson's Address to the Democratic
National Convention, delivered at
San Francisco, CA - July 18, 1984.
Tonight we come
together bound by our faith in a mighty God,
with genuine
respect and love for our country, and inheriting
the legacy of a great party, the Democratic
Party, which is the best hope for redirecting
our nation on a more humane, just and peaceful
course.
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 this week to nominate a candidate and adopt
a platform which will expand, unify, direct and
inspire our Party and the Nation to fulfill this
mission.
My constituency is
the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the
disrespected, and the despised. They are
restless and seek relief. They've voted in
record numbers. They have invested faith, hope
and trust that they have in us. The Democratic
Party must send them a signal that we care. I
pledge my best to not let them down.
There is the call
of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing
and unity. Leadership must heed the call of
conscience, redemption, expansion, healing and
unity, for they are the key to achieving our
mission. Time is neutral and does not change
things. With courage and initiative, leaders can
change things.
No generation can
choose the age or circumstance in which it is
born, but through leadership it can choose to
make the age in which it is born, an age of
enlightenment, an age of jobs and peace and
justice.
Only leadership -
that intangible combination of gifts, the
discipline, information, circumstance, courage,
timing, will and divine inspiration - can lead
us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves.
The leadership can mitigate the misery of our
nation. 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.
I've had the rare
opportunity to watch seven men, and then two,
pour out their souls, offer their service and
heal - and heed the call of duty to direct the
course of our Nation. There is a proper season
for everything. There is a time to sow, a time
to reap. There is a time to compete, and a time
to cooperate.
I ask for your
vote on the first ballot as a vote for a new
direction for this Party and this Nation. A vote
of conviction, a vote of conscience.
But I will be
proud to support the nominee of this convention
for the Presidency of the United States of
America.
I have watched the
leadership of our party develop and grow. My
respect for both Mr. Mondale and Mr. Hart is
great. I have watched them struggle with the
crosswinds and crossfires of being public
servants, and I believe they will both continue
to try to serve us faithfully.
I am elated by the
knowledge that for the first time in our history
a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, will be recommended
to share our ticket.
Throughout this
campaign, I've tried to offer leadership to the
Democratic Party and the Nation. If in my high
moments, I have done some good, offered some
service, shed some light, healed some wounds,
rekindled some hope, or stirred someone from
apathy and indifference, or in any way along the
way helped somebody, then this campaign has not
been in vain.
For friends who
loved and cared for me, and for a God who spared
me, and for a family who understood, I am
eternally grateful.
If, in my low
moments, in word, deed or attitude, through some
error of temper, taste or tone, I have caused
anyone discomfort, created pain or revived
someone's fears, that was not my truest self. If
there were 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. My head - so limited in its
finitude; my heart, which is boundless in its
love for the human family. 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.
This campaign has
taught me much; that 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.
For leaders, the
pain is often intense. But you must smile
through your tears and keep moving with the
faith that there is a brighter side somewhere.
I went to see
Hubert Humphrey three days before he died. He
had just called Richard Nixon from his dying
bed, and many people wondered why. I asked him.
He said, "Jesse, from this vantage point, with
the sun setting in my life, all of the speeches,
the political conventions, the crowds and the
great fights are behind me now. At a time like
this you are forced to deal with your
irreducible essence, forced to grapple with that
which is really important to you. And what I
have concluded about life," Huber Humphrey said,
"When all is said and done, we must forgive each
other, and redeem each other, and move on."
Our party is
emerging from one of its most hard fought
battles for the Democratic Party's presidential
nomination in our history. But our healthy
competition should make us better, not bitter.
We must use the
insight, wisdom, and experience of the late
Hubert Humphrey as a balm for the wounds in our
Party, this Nation and the world. We must
forgive each other, redeem each other, regroup
and move one.
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.
America is not
like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth,
the same color, the same texture, the same size.
America is more like a quilt - many patches,
many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven
and held together by a common thread. The white,
the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the
woman, the native American, the small farmer,
the businessperson, the environmentalist, the
peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian,
the gay and the disabled make up the American
quilt.
Even in our
fractured state, all of us count and all of us
fit somewhere. We have proven that we can
survive without each other. But we have not
proven that we can win and progress without each
other. We must come together.
From Fannie Lou
Hamer in Atlantic City in 1964 to the Rainbow
Coalition in San Francisco today; from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, we have experienced
pain but progress as we ended American apartheid
laws, we got public accommodation, we secured
voting rights, we obtained open housing, as
young people got the right to vote. We lost
Malcolm, Martin, Medgar, Bobby, John and Viola.
The team that got us here must be expanded, not
abandoned.
Twenty years ago,
tears welled up in our eyes as the bodies of
Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were dredged from
the depths of a river in Mississippi. Twenty
years later, our communities, black and Jewish,
are in anguish, anger and pain. Feelings have
been hurt on both sides.
There is a crisis
in communications. Confusion is in the air. But
we cannot afford to lose our way. We may agree
to agree; or agree to disagree on issues; we
must bring back civility to these tensions.
We are co-partners
in a long and rich religious history - the
Judeo-Christian traditions. Many blacks and Jews
have a shared passion for social justice at home
and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the
spirit, inspired by a new vision and new
possibilities. We must return to higher ground.
We are bound by
Moses and Jesus, but also connected with Islam
and Mohammed. These three great religions,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, were all born
in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem.
We are bound by
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham
Heschel, crying out from their graves for us to
reach common ground. We are bound by shared
blood and shared sacrifices. We are much too
intelligent; much too bound by our
Judeo-Christian heritage; much too victimized by
racism, sexism, militarism and anti-Semitism;
much too threatened as historical scapegoats to
go on divided one from another. We must turn
from finger pointing to clasped hands. We must
share our burdens and our joys with each other
once again. We must turn to each other and not
on each other and choose higher ground.
Twenty years
later, we cannot be satisfied by just restoring
the old coalition. Old wine skins must make room
for new wine. We must heal and expand. The
Rainbow Coalition is making room for Arab
Americans. They, too, know the pain and hurt of
racial and religious rejection. They must not
continue to be made pariahs. The Rainbow
Coalition is making room for Hispanic Americans
who this very night are living under the threat
of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill. And farm workers
from Ohio who are fighting the Campbell Soup
Company with a boycott to achieve legitimate
workers' rights.
The Rainbow is
making room for the Native American, the most
exploited people of all, a people with the
greatest moral claim amongst us. We support them
as they seek the restoration of their ancient
land and claim amongst us. We support them as
they seek the restoration of land and water
rights, as they seek to preserve their ancestral
homelands and the beauty of a land that was once
all theirs. They can never receive a fair share
for all they have given us. They must finally
have a fair chance to develop their great
resources and to preserve their people and their
culture.
The Rainbow
Coalition includes Asian Americans, now being
killed in our streets, scapegoats for the
failures of corporate, industrial and economic
policies.
The Rainbow is
making room for the young Americans. Twenty
years ago, our young people were dying in a war
for which they could not even vote. Twenty years
later, young America has the power to stop a war
in Central America and the responsibility to
vote in great numbers. Young America must be
politically active in 1984. The choice is war or
peace. We must make room for young America.
The Rainbow
includes disabled veterans. The color scheme
fits in the Rainbow. The disabled have their
handicap revealed and their genius concealed;
while the able-bodied have their genius revealed
and their disability concealed. But ultimately,
we must judge people by their values and their
contribution. Don't leave anybody out. I would
rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than
Reagan on a horse.
The Rainbow
includes for small farmers. They have suffered
tremendously under the Reagan regime. They will
either receive 90 percent parity or 100 percent
charity. We must address their concerns and make
room for them.
The Rainbow
includes lesbians and gays. No American citizen
ought to be denied equal protection from the
law.
We must be
unusually committed and caring as we expand our
family to include new members. All of us must be
tolerant and understanding as the fears and
anxieties of the rejected and of the party
leadership express themselves in so many
different ways. Too often what we call hate - as
if it were some deeply rooted in philosophy or
strategy - it is simply ignorance, anxiety,
paranoia, fear and insecurity.
To be strong
leaders, we must be long-suffering as we seek to
right the wrongs of our Party and our Nation. We
must expand our Party, heal our Party and unify
our Party. That is our mission in 1984.
We are often
reminded that we live in a great nation - and we
do. But it can be greater still. The Rainbow is
mandating a new definition of greatness. We must
not measure greatness from the mansion down, but
from 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.
President Reagan
says the nation is in recovery. Those 90,000
corporations that made a profit last year but
paid no Federal taxes are recovering. The 37,000
military contractors who have benefited from
Reagan's more than doubling of the military
budget in peacetime surely they are recovering.
The big
corporations and rich individuals who received
the bulk of a three-year, multibillion tax cut
from Mr. Reagan are recovering. But no such
recovery is under way for the least of these.
Rising tides don't lift all boats, particularly
those stuck at the bottom.
For the boats
stuck at the bottom there's a misery index. This
Administration has made life more miserable for
the poor. Its attitude has been contemptuous.
Its policies and programs have been cruel and
unfair to working people. They must be held
accountable in November for increasing infant
mortality among the poor. In Detroit, one of the
great cities in the western world, babies are
dying at the same rate as Honduras, the most
underdeveloped Nation in out hemisphere. This
Administration must be held accountable for
policies that have contributed to the growing
poverty in America. There are now 34 million
people in poverty, 15 percent of our Nation.
Twenty-three million are White, 11 million
Black, Hispanic, Asian and others. By the end of
this year, there will be 41 million people in
poverty. We cannot stand idly by. We must fight
for change now.
Under this regime,
we look at Social Security. The 1981 budget cuts
included nine permanent Social Security benefit
cuts totaling $20 billion over five years.
Small businesses
have suffered on the Reagan tax cuts. Only 18
percent of total business tax cuts went to them,
82 percent to big businesses.
Health care under
Mr. Reagan has already been sharply cut.
Education under Mr. Reagan has been cut 25
percent. Under Mr. Reagan there are now 9.7
million female head families. They represent 16
percent of all families. Half of all of them are
poor. Seventy percent of all poor children live
in a house headed by a woman, where there is no
man.
Under Mr. Reagan,
the Administration has cleaned up only six of
546 priority toxic waste dumps. Farmers' real
net income was only about half its level in
1979.
Many say that the
race in November will be decided in the South.
President Reagan 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, the least to
conserve. In his appeal to the South, Mr. Reagan
is trying to substitute flags and prayer cloths
for food, and clothing, and education, health
care and housing.
Mr. Reagan will
ask us to pray, and I believe in prayer. I have
come to this way by power of prayer. But then,
we must watch false prophecy. He cuts energy
assistance to the poor, cuts breakfast programs
from children, cuts lunch programs from
children, cuts job training from children, and
then says to an empty table, "Let us pray."
Apparently he is not familiar with the structure
of prayer. You thank the Lord for the food that
you are about to receive, not the food that just
left. I think that we should pray, but don't
pray for the food that left. Pray for the man
that took the food - to leave.
We need a change.
We need a change in November.
Under Mr. Reagan,
the misery index has risen for the poor. The
danger index has risen for everybody. Under this
administration, we have lost the lives of our
boys in Central America and Honduras, in
Grenada, in Lebanon, in a nuclear standoff in
Europe. Under this Administration, one-third of
our children believe they will die in a nuclear
war. The danger index is increasing in this
world.
All the talk about
the defense against Russia; the Russian
submarines are closer, and their missiles more
accurate. We live in a world tonight more
miserable and a world more dangerous. While
Reaganomics and Reaganism is talked about often,
so often we miss the real meaning. Reaganism is
a spirit, and Reaganomics represents the real
economic facts of life.
In 1980, Mr.
George Bush, a man with reasonable access to Mr.
Reagan, did an analysis of Mr. Reagan's economic
plan. Mr. George Bush concluded that Reagan's
plan was ''voodoo economics.'' He was right.
Third- party
candidate John Anderson said "a combination of
military spending, tax cuts and a balanced
budget by 1984 would be accomplished with blue
smoke and mirrors." They were both right.
Mr. Reagan talks
about a dynamic recovery. There's some measure
of recovery. Three and a half years later,
unemployment has inched just below where it was
when he took office in 1981. There are still 8.1
million people officially unemployed, 11 million
working only parttime. Inflation has come down,
but let's analyze for a moment who has paid the
price for this superficial economic recovery.
Mr. Reagan curbed
inflation by cutting consumer demand. He cut
consumer demand with conscious and callous
fiscal and monetary policies. He used the
Federal budget to deliberately induce
unemployment and curb social spending. He then
weighed and supported tight monetary policies of
the Federal Reserve Board to deliberately drive
up interest rates, again to curb consumer demand
created through borrowing. Unemployment reached
10.7 percent. We experienced skyrocketing
interest rates. Our dollar inflated abroad.
There were record bank failures; record farm
foreclosures; record business bankruptcies;
record budget deficits; record trade deficits.
Mr. Reagan brought
inflation down by destabilizing our economy and
disrupting family life. He promised in 1980 a
balanced budget. But instead we now have a
record toward a billion dollar budget deficit.
Under Mr. Reagan, the cumulative budget deficit
for his four years is more than the sum total of
deficits from George Washington through Jimmy
Carter combined. I tell you, we need a change.
How is he paying
for these short-term jobs? Reagan's economic
recovery is being financed by deficit spending -
$200 billion a year. Military spending, a major
cause of this deficit, is projected, over the
next five years, to be nearly $2 trillion, and
will cost about $40,000 for every taxpaying
family.
When the
Government borrows $200 billion annually to
finance the deficit, this encourages the private
sector to make its money off of interest rates
as opposed to development and economic growth.
Even money abroad,
we don't have enough money domestically to
finance the debt, so we are now borrowing money
abroad, from foreign banks, governments and
financial institutions: $40 billion in 1983;
$70-80 billion in 1984 (40 percent of our
total); and over $100 billion (50 percent of our
total) in 1985. By 1989, it is projected that 50
percent of all individual income taxes will be
going just to pay for interest on the debt.
The United States
used to be the largest exporter of capital, but
under Mr. Reagan we will quite likely become the
largest debtor nation.
About two weeks
ago, on July 4th, we celebrated our Declaration
of Independence, yet every day supply-side
economics is making our Nation more economically
dependent and less economically free. Five to
six percent of our Gross National Product is now
being eaten up with President Reagan's budget
deficits. To depend on foreign military powers
to protect our national security would be
foolish, making us dependent and less secure,
yet Reaganomics has us increasingly dependent on
foreign economic sources.
This consumer-led
but deficit-financed recovery is unbalanced and
artificial. We have a challenge as Democrats to
point a way out. Democracy guarantees
opportunity, not success. Democracy guarantees
the right to participate, not a license for
either a majority to dominate. The victory for
the Rainbow Coalition in the Platform debates
today was not whether we won or lost, but that
we raised the right issues.
We could afford to
lose the vote; issues are non-negotiable. We
could not afford to avoid raising the right
questions. Our self-respect and our moral
integrity were at stake. Our heads are perhaps
bloody, but not bowed. Our back is straight. We
can go home and face our people. Our vision is
clear.
When we think, on
this journey from slaveship to championship,
that we have gone from the planks of the
Boardwalk in Atlantic City in 1964 to fighting
to help write the planks in the platform in San
Francisco in 1984 there is a deep and abiding
sense of joy in our souls in spite of the tears
in our eyes. Though there are missing planks,
there is a solid foundation upon which to build.
Our party can win, but we must provide hope,
which will inspire people to struggle and
achieve; provide a plan that shows a way out of
our dilemma and then lead the way.
In 1984, my heart
is made to feel glad because I know there is a
way out - justice. The requirement for
rebuilding America is justice. The linchpin of
progressive politics in our nation will not come
from the North, they in fact will come from the
South.
That is why I
argue over and over again. We look from Virginia
around to Texas, there's only one black
Congressperson out of 115. Nineteen years later,
we're locked out the Congress, the Senate and
the Governor's mansion.
What does this
large black vote mean? Why do I fight to win
second primaries and fight gerrymandering and
annexation and at-large elections? Why do we
fight over that? Because I tell you, you cannot
hold someone in the ditch unless you linger
there with them . Unless you linger there.
If you want a
change in this nation, you enforce that voting
rights act. We'll get 12 to 20 Black, Hispanics,
female and progressive congresspersons from the
South. We can save the cotton, but we have got
to fight the boll weevils. We have got to make a
judgment. We have got to make a judgment.
It is not enough
to hope that ERA will pass. How can we pass ERA?
If Blacks vote in great numbers, progressive
Whites win. It is the only way progressive
Whites win. If Blacks vote in great numbers,
Hispanics win. When Blacks, Hispanics and
progressive Whites vote, women win. When women
win, children win. When women and children win,
workers win. We must all come together. We must
come together.
I tell you, in all
our joy and excitement, we must not save the
world and lose our souls. We should never
short-circuit enforcing the Voting Rights Act at
every level. When one of us rises, all of us
will rise. Justice is the way out. Peace is the
way out. We should not act as if nuclear
weaponry is negotiable and debatable.
In this world in
which we live, we dropped the bomb on Japan and
felt guilty, but in 1984 other folks have also
got bombs. This time, if we drop the bomb, six
minutes later we, too, will be destroyed. It is
not about dropping the bomb on somebody. It is
about dropping the bomb on everybody. We must
choose to develop minds over guided missiles,
and then think it out and not fight it out. It
is time for a change.
Our foreign policy
must be characterized by mutual respect, not by
gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy and
threats. Our Nation at its best feeds the
hungry. Our Nation at its worst, at its worst,
will mine the harbors of Nicaragua; at its worst
will try to overthrow their government, at its
worst will cut aid to American education and
increase the aid to El Salvador; at its worst,
our Nation will have partnership with South
Africa. That is a moral disgrace. It is a moral
disgrace. It is a moral disgrace.
We look at Africa.
We cannot just focus on Apartheid in Southern
Africa. We must fight for trade with Africa, and
not just aid to Africa. We cannot stand idly by
and say we will not relate to Nicaragua unless
they have elections there, and then embrace
military regimes in Africa overthrowing
democratic governments in Nigeria and Liberia
and Ghana. We must fight for democracy all
around the world, and play the game by one set
of rules.
Peace in this
world. Our present formula for peace in the
Middle East is inadequate. It will not work.
There are 22 nations in the Middle East. Our
nation must be able to talk and act and
influence all of them. We must build upon Camp
David, and measure human rights by one yard
stick. In that region we have too many interests
and too few friends.
There is one way
out, jobs. Put America back to work.
When I was a child
growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, the
Reverend Sample used to preach ever so often a
sermon relating to Jesus and he said, "If I be
lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." I
didn't quite understand what he meant as a child
growing up, but I understand a little better
now. If you raise up truth, it is magnetic. It
has a way of drawing people.
With all this
confusion in this Convention, the bright lights
and parties and big fun, we must raise up the
single proposition: If we lift up a program to
feed the hungry, they will come running; if we
lift up a program to start a war no more, our
youth will come running; if we lift up a program
to put America back to work, and an alternative
to welfare and despair, they will come running.
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.
As I leave you
now, we vote in this convention and get ready to
go back across this nation in a couple of days,
in this campaign I tried to be faithful to my
promise. I lived in old barrios, ghettos and in
reservations and housing projects.
I have a message
for our youth. I challenge them to put hope in
their brains and not dope in their veins. I told
them that like Jesus, I, too, was born in the
slum, and just because you're born in a slum
does not mean the slum is born in you and you
can rise above it if your mind is made up. I
told them in every slum there are two sides.
When I see a broken window that's the slummy
side. Train some youth to become a glazier; that
is the sunny side. When I see a missing brick,
that is the slummy side. Let that child in a
union and become a brick mason and build; that
is the sunny side. When I see a missing door,
that is the slummy side. Train some youth to
become a carpenter, that is the sunny side. When
I see the vulgar words and hieroglyphics of
destitution on the walls, that is the slummy
side. Train some youth to be a painter and
artist, that is the sunny side.
We leave this
place looking for the sunny side because there's
a brighter side somewhere. I am 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.
Young America,
dream. Choose the human race over the nuclear
race. Bury the weapons and don't burn the
people. Dream - dream of a new value system.
Teachers who teach for life and not just for a
living; teach because they can't help it. Dream
of lawyers more concerned about justice than a
judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned about
public health than personal wealth. Dream of
preachers and priests who will prophesy and not
just profiteer. Preach and dream! Our time has
come. Our time has come.
Suffering breeds
character. Character breeds faith, and in the
end faith will not disappoint. Our time has
come. Our faith, hope and dreams have prevailed.
Our time has come. Weeping has endured for
nights but that joy cometh in the morning.
Our time has come.
No grave can hold our body down. Our time has
come. No lie can live forever. Our time has
come. We must leave the racial battle ground and
come to the economic common ground and moral
higher ground. America, our time has come.
We come from
disgrace to amazing grace. Our time has come.
Give me your tired, give me your poor, your
huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and
come November, there will be a change because
our time has come.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
is more:
