jackson
The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., biography
The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, is one of America's foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over …
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SEQUESTER PAIN GOES BEYOND AIR TRAVEL
When the sequester federal spending cuts forced flight delays because of the furlough of air traffic controllers, the normally deadlocked Congress acted in less than a week to give the Federal Aviation Administration flexibility to avoid the furloughs. The aggravations of business travelers are heard …Read More
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South Side isn’t ready for health emergencies
As this is written, everyone wounded in the terror bombings at the Boston Marathon has survived his or her wounds. This remarkable testament to effective medical response stems largely from Boston’s exceptional health-care capacity. But as demonstrated by the fertilizer explosion in West, Texas, the …Read More
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Reparations in order for 1963 bombing
It was terror that shook the nation. On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in the basement of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Four little girls, all dressed in white — 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, and …Read More
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Unhealthy obsession with testing is behind rampant school cheating
The Atlanta public school cheating scandal is but “the tip of the iceberg,” reports Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. A new FairTest survey reports confirmed cheating incidents in 37 states and the District of Columbia in …
45 years after King, struggle goes on
April 4 will mark the 45th year since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Dr. King, 39, at the time, has now been gone from us longer than he was with us. A monument celebrates his life on …
Michigan ‘czars’ strip away citizens’ rights
Imagine Gov. George Wallace of Alabama in 1963 appointing an emergency manager in Birmingham with broad powers to dismiss elected officials, renegotiate contracts, sell assets and become sole authority of the city’s pension funds a month after the voters rejected the emergency manager law in …
More youth priced out of college
Morehouse College, one of the most distinguished historically black colleges — with graduates like Dr. Martin Luther King, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, film director Spike Lee and others — literally shut down for spring break this week. As its 2,000 students took their break, …
Time to restart U.S.-Venezuela relations
Last week, President Obama sent a small delegation — featuring U.S. Reps. Gregory Meeks and William Delahunt — to attend the funeral of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. In doing so, he wisely ignored both the provocative comments from Venezuela suggesting that the U.S. was …
Court misses white racial entitlement
In oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia slandered the act as a “racial entitlement,” arguing, “whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” So, the …
Voting rights act as needed as ever
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the case of Shelby v. Holder. On the same day, across the street in the congressional rotunda, a statue honoring Rosa Parks will be unveiled. And one week later, the …
Guns, not the Klan, are the real threat
Chicago suffers unbearable levels of gun violence, yet the victims remain largely silent. They travel from funeral home to graveyard rather than march from church to gun shop. The president is applauded when he calls for action on gun violence, but before his plane leaves …
Obama knows what ails Chicago
On Saturday, family and friends gathered to mourn the loss of Hadiya Pendleton, shot to death last month at age 15 in a South Side park. Michelle Obama graced the memorial with her caring presence, a mother comforting a brokenhearted family for the unbearable horror …
Come home, Mr. President
Chicago is in a state of emergency. Lives are being lost. Fear is growing. Local officials, ministers and community activists are working diligently but cannot break the cycle. We’re seeing more than one funeral a day. Our children are traumatized. Many are afraid to go …
Dr. King’s lesson: It’s up to us
‘We the people declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all …
We’ve come a long way, but we have far to go
When President Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term, his hand will rest not only on President Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, but on Dr. Martin Luther King’s, too. As the ceremony falls on the federal holiday celebrating Dr. King’s birth, the civil rights leader …
Aim for a rational discussion on guns
The president is committed to reforming our gun laws; a working group headed by Vice President Joe Biden is considering a broad agenda. The proposals mentioned, not formally announced yet, already are being strafed by politicians in both parties. Before everyone goes to the barricades, …
Make 2013 a year of renewal, not ruin
The new year begins with a bad hangover from 2012’s inane debate over the “fiscal cliff.” The furious debate focused only on how much damage would be done to the economy and who would pay the price, how much and what would be cut, who …
Faith is stronger than the sword
Christmas decorations light the streets. Malls are full. Christmas music fills the air. But this year, there is a somber undercurrent to the celebration. We will all hug our children a little harder. Our hearts will be in our throats as they go out to …
After Newtown: Will we finally act?
Do not turn your eyes from the horror of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Twenty children, their teachers and aides, their school principal shot repeatedly, in some cases beyond recognition, by a 20-year-old wielding a semiautomatic assault weapon. As he has …
A battle in Michigan for the American Dream
Tuesday, thousands will demonstrate at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing to protest a frontal assault on working people. Republican majorities in the state House and Senate have vowed to jam through right-to-work legislation this week. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who originally said this wasn’t …
