Chicago Sun-Times

Jesse Jackson: The real lesson of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:38:00 -0500

BY JESSE JACKSON: The real lesson of “Green Eggs and Ham,” and other things to think about on the eve of a possible government shutdown.

Keep hope alive with a new war on poverty

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 20:20:00 -0500

Only a couple of weeks ago, as the nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful “I Have a Dream” speech, I was reminded of the Rev. King’s last birthday, in January 1968. He combined it with work — a staff meeting, planning for the multiracial Poor People’s March, where we made plans to occupy the National Mall. He spoke to us of the need to march to demand an end to the War in Vietnam and to push for a full commitment to the War on Poverty. This week — …

Five years after the crash began

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 21:42:00 -0500

Five years after the beginning of the financial collapse and the Great Recession, where are we? This week, President Obama offered Americans a progress report. He hailed the steps taken to turn the economy around and rescue the auto and financial industries. He used the occasion, sensibly, to challenge Republicans in the Congress not to do more damage to the slow recovery by manufacturing another unnecessary budget crisis. The president was candid about how far we have to go. He suggested that the very trends that were destroying the middle class prior to the Great Recession have gotten worse. The …

Isolate — don’t bomb — Syria

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 18:52:00 -0500

President Obama will address the nation on Syria tonight hoping to stem opposition that is rising both at home and abroad. Polls show the broad majority of Americans oppose getting further involved in Syria. Despite his best efforts, the president could not persuade even a majority of the G-20 nations — the largest economies in the world — to declare support for a strike on Syria. In Congress, the Senate seems split, but in the House the number of representatives expressing their opposition or doubts about striking Syria far exceeds those indicating support. Americans are weary of war, still waiting …

Stand up to ‘dream busters’

Mon, 02 Sep 2013 20:50:00 -0500

We have heard the call for action. The 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom outlined what needs to be done to revive the Dream. President Obama has put forward part of that agenda for action. And now we face the Dream Busters. The agenda is compelling and clear. We should be expanding the right to vote, not constricting it. Congress should act to restore the Voting Rights Act and limit the role of big money in politics. With the minimum wage now lower in value than it was when Dr. King marched in 1963, Congress should raise …

50 years later: The president’s response

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 19:54:01 -0500

This Wednesday, Aug. 28, on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “Dream” oration, President Barack Obama will speak from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, joined by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Much of the press is speculating about whether the president can reach the “King standard.” Can he deliver an address with the poetry and the vision that made Dr. King’s speech timeless? But I suggest to you that this is the wrong standard by which to measure the president. Barack Obama isn’t the leader of a March on …

King’s unfinished symphony of freedom

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:48:01 -0500

Next weekend, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, best known for Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Dream.” Fifty years later, the dream challenges us yet. It is alive because it is not static. The dream of equal rights and equal opportunity, of being judged for character, not color, has transformed this nation. Much progress has been forged; much remains to be done. One way to think about the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King’s Dream is as a symphony of freedom. The first movement was the movement to end slavery, which required …

King’s march was for jobs and freedom

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 18:12:00 -0500

BY JESSE JACKSON. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the famous March on Washington,Americans will recall Dr. King’s famous “dream.”But it’s worth recalling the full meaning of that dream. But for jobs and economic opportunity, the March on Washington remains unfinished 50 years later.

Enshrine voting right in the Constitution

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:32:00 -0500

On this day, 48 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, announcing, “This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, as individuals, control over their own destinies.” With Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at his side, he pledged that the act would be enforced. No longer would anyone be excluded from exercising the right to vote because of the color of his or her skin. This February, in his fourth State of the Union address, a newly re-elected President Obama earned fierce applause when he declared: …

North Carolina’s Tea Party nightmares

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 22:36:00 -0500

North Carolina — once poster child for the New South— now displays the nightmares spawned by the Tea Party right no longer restrained by the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court’s conservative gang of five disemboweled it in the Shelby case. In North Carolina, Republicans took the General Assembly in 2010 and the governorship in 2012. The takeover received rather unprecedented support from one right-wing multimillionaire, Art Pope — who, according to progressive publication The American Prospect, singlehandedly provided about 80 percent of the funding for the state’s conservative groups. Upon taking control, the Republicans began systematically dismantling the …

From conversation to action: After Trayvon

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 17:10:00 -0500

President Barack Obama eloquently described the agony experienced among African-Americans from the slaying of Trayvon Martin. He called for a more thoughtful “conversation” on race, convened not by politicians, but among families, in churches and workplaces. He suggested modest steps to provide greater training on racial profiling with police, greater efforts to figure out how to do a “better job helping young African-American men feel that they’re a full part of this society and that they’ve got pathways and avenues to succeed.” The president’s courageous comments merit praise and consideration. But we’ve had a long conversation about race in America. …

Investigate the racial context behind Martin’s death

Sat, 17 Aug 2013 06:25:02 -0500

If Trayvon Martin were not a young black male, he would be alive today. Despite the verdict, it’s clear that George Zimmerman would never have confronted a young white man wearing a hoodie. He would, at the very least, have listened to the cops and stayed back. Trayvon Martin is dead because Zimmerman believed that “these guys always get away” and chose not to wait for the police. Trayvon Martin’s death shatters the convenient myths that blind us to reality. That reality, as the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board wrote, is that “black men carry a special burden from the day …

An economic divide is growing in our cities

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 06:21:00 -0500

What is the plan for our nation’s cities? Are they simply to simmer with a growing divide between the affluent financial district and the impoverished slums? Will another generation be lost while we wait for the inevitable explosions? The gulf between the realities of our cities and the foolishness of our politics has seldom been wider. Consider gun violence. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Chicago surpassed 200 homicide deaths for the year. On that weekend alone, 10 people were killed and several dozen wounded in gun violence, including 5- and 7-year-old boys. The only grim salvation in the savage …

Obama should lead fight to revive Voting Rights Act

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 06:22:06 -0500

President Barack Obama should lead a forceful drive to revive the Voting Rights Act, which was effectively disemboweled by the Supreme Court’s decision last week. All celebrate the 1965 Act as the most consequential civil rights legislation of the past century. Its passage was central to the building of the New South, opening the way to attracting foreign investment in auto factories, creating CNN, hosting the Super Bowl, even electing presidents. One afflicted with a poisoned heart is often blind to its effects. The South learned only after the civil rights legislation that segregation was blighting its own potential. In …

On race, Supreme Court is out of touch

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 06:21:14 -0500

In its decision Monday on affirmative action, the Supreme Court punted. It reviewed the University of Texas affirmative action program — in which race is admittedly “a factor of a factor of a factor” in admission, one of many factors used with a university committed to the educational benefits of a diverse student body — and said the lower court had to give it even stricter scrutiny. Or in essence, take another, harsher look and come back next year. In making the decision, the court once more revealed how out of touch it is with reality. The 14th Amendment to …

Inner cities need disaster relief, too

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 06:16:22 -0500

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently spoke at a conference sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago on disaster recovery in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which caused an estimated $39 billion in damage in New Jersey. Christie talked through the plans for rebuilding after the initial steps to get power and water back up and return the area to “normalcy,” using some $60 billion in federal relief contributions. A disaster like Sandy causes a structural dislocation beyond local capacity. Storms, tornados, earthquakes and sudden deindustrialization are all disasters. Houses and roads are destroyed; the local economy is ruined; …

LBJ’s war on poverty still only partly won

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 06:21:09 -0500

Fifty years ago this week, Medgar Evers, the NAACP regional secretary in Mississippi, was murdered by a member of the White Citizens’ Council. Evers’ death received national attention, serving only to strengthen the movement for civil rights. Two years later, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a historic commencement address at Howard University, laying out progress made and challenges unmet. Johnson praised the “indomitable determination” of African Americans demanding their freedom. He hailed the Supreme Court for outlawing segregation, as well as Congress for passing the first civil rights legislation in 100 years. The barriers to freedom are tumbling down, but “freedom …

Obama must see Africa in new light

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:38:57 -0500

When President Obama and the first lady travel to Africa at the end of this month, they will receive a rapturous greeting. The president’s deep roots in Kenya, the land of his father, resonate throughout the continent. His success in the United States evokes pride and joy in Africa. I write this from Nigeria, a country that has just celebrated its 14th year of democracy. President Obama’s election enabled Africans to see America in a new light. I hope his visit will enable Americans to see Africa with new eyes. We know the problems of Africa: its poverty, corruption and …