Jesse Jackson

Activist

1941-10-08

Quotes by Jesse Jackson

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

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

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

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• The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

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• I think reconciliation is Obama's goal - but the fight with the Republicans is like a fight with pit bulls, they never let go. Even worse, now the Republicans feel they can keep pushing and he will keep giving. They have not seen a stiff resistance on his part.

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

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• 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.

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

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• We reveal our joys and successes, we conceal our pain.

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

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• Those powers that control the tent are not threatened at all by any activity that you engage in, in the shadows, that's not moving toward the tent. And I am rather convinced that we have a generation that is so preoccupied with life in the shadows, they never even focus on getting to the sunlight where you open up the big tent.

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• 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.

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• The more you focus on sex without love, and drugs and violence, lifestyle of intimidation and recycling, the less energy you spend on opening up the big tent.

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

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

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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• There's a full-court press to put down an uprising around Ferguson, but no preparation for lifting up the people there.

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• 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.

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