Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. was the featured speaker at the Saturday night banquet at Truman Days 2008 in Independence.

Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. began service in the United States House of Representatives on December 12, 1995, as he was sworn in as a member of the 104th Congress, the 91st African American ever elected to Congress.

Representative Jackson currently sits on the House Appropriations Committee, serving as the 5th ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education as well as the 2nd ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs. His leadership created the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health in 2001, hailed by many minority health experts as the most important civil rights legislation since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Representative Jackson also secured funding for the Institute of Medicine’s 2002 report on health disparities, “Unequal Treatment…”

…In 1987, Representative Jackson graduated magna cum laude from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management. Three years later, he earned a Master of Arts Degree in Theology from the Chicago Theological Seminary, and in 1993, received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Illinois College of Law. He has also been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Chicago Theological Seminary, Governors State University, North Carolina A & T State University, Charles R. Drew Univ. of Medicine and Science, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Representative Jackson has co-authored A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights (2001) with Frank E. Watkins. He has also co-authored Legal Lynching II (2001), It’s About the Money (1999) and Legal Lynching (1996)…

Congressman Jackson’s remarks:  

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to Congressman Emanuel Cleaver for that very generous and very kind, very warm, very thoughtful, very profound, very provocative, and very truthful introduction. [laughter] Senator Claire McCaskill, extraordinary representative of the people of the great state of Missouri in the United States Senate. Every single Missourian has a lot to be proud of for the class, the dignity, the level of distinction that Claire McCaskill has brought to the United States Senate. Give Claire a great round of applause. [applause, cheers] Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, whom I can’t say enough about. Emanuel is an extraordinary leader in the Congress of the United States, an extraordinary friend, a man with whom everyone in the Congress, both Democrat and Republican, look to with great esteem. Emanuel gives new credence to the idea of what it means to be a distinguished gentleman. I’m proud to serve in the Congress of the United States with Emanuel. Please give Reverend Cleaver… [applause, cheers] To the entire Missouri delegation, Congressman Ike Skelton – your dean, Lacy Clay, Russ Carnahan, and the soon Honorable Kay Barnes…member of Congress [cheers, applause]

I am indeed honored and privileged to have the opportunity to be here tonight and in Jackson County. I want to congratulate at the outset the gentleman who has shown extraordinary leadership across this state, he will be your next governor. Jay, we enjoyed your remarks tonight. Give Jay Nixon another round of applause. [applause]

To the mother of the Democratic Party [Dutch Newman] [laughter],  I’ve always wanted to meet you. [laughter] I wanted to know who gave birth to this motley group [laughter] of political activists. Dutch Newman, for your extraordinary work helping elect Democrats across this state, it’s because of your grass roots activism and the inspiration and motivation that you give a new generation of Democrats a reason for existence.

My father tells me that so much of who we are as public servants, not as politicians, comes from simple basic biblical teachings. To serve this present age [garbled] will all my powers be engaged to do the master’s will. To serve the least of these, those who cannot speak for themselves. The political process within which we serve provides us the legal means by which those who cannot afford health care, who cannot afford housing, those who are suffering economically, might bring about a change in their lives. For those of us who consider ourselves to be the blessed amongst us, while we help the rest amongst us, this is the legal process within which our country allows us, Dutch, to bring about change. And just no one in the great state of Missouri, and in this county, has done that quite like Dutch. Give Dutch another great round of applause. [applause, cheers]

It’s very difficult for me to improve upon what your Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders said in his extraordinary speech. Jackson County Democratic Committee Chairman Wayne Stewart, members of the 5th District Democratic Women’s Club, and distinguished guests and fellow Democrats. I’m honored to join you this year as you celebrate one of the heroes of the Democratic Party, Harry S Truman. Truman Days activities are always a high point in the year. Which is only natural, since the activities are sponsored by the [emphasis] Jackson County Democratic Committee. And I’m happy to be in [emphasis] Jackson County. [laughter, applause] I thought, Emmanuel, I knew what Democrats were until I met a Jackson County Democrat. [laughter] I never felt more warm and more welcome than the Democratic Party gathering,  and I must add that I have spoken in thirty states during the course of this very long Democratic contest, and I’ve never met Democrats quite like you Harry Truman Democrats. [laughter, applause, cheers]  With that said, I plan to tell you the truth tonight. [laughter] I’m gonna do three things. First, I plan to be brief. Then I plan to be adequate. And third, I plan to be appropriate. [laughter] But in keeping with the Jesse Jackson, Sr. tradition, I plan to be adequate and appropriate. [laughter] Two out of three isn’t all that bad. [laughter]

I asked my father a long time ago what the key to giving a good speech was and said, “Jesse, Jr., if you write a very good beginning”, Reverend Cleaver, “and if you write a very good ending, and you can manage to put the two as close together as possible, [laughter] then you’ll have a good speech.” I plan to try and follow some of his advice this evening.

Actually, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in approximately, Mrs. Cleaver, three and a half minutes. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the “I have a dream” speech, Jay, in thirteen and a half minutes. I plan to position a Harry Truman’s Day comfortably between Gettysburg and “I have a dream”. [laughter, applause]

We’re actually gonna get out of here on the same night that we began. [laughter]

Tonight I want to speak from the subject – we are Americans. And the definition of  what it means to be an American is a changing proposition. Harry Truman once said, “Our case for Democracy should be as strong as we can make it. It should rest on practical evidence that we have been able to put our own House Democrats in order.” Today is May 17th, two thousand and eight. Today marks the fifty fourth anniversary of the Brown versus the Board of Education decision in 1954. May 17th. We are quite a different Democratic Party on May 17th 2008 then we were on May 17th 1954. I don’t want to, what Harry Truman would have said, give you too much hell without telling you the truth. But Harry Truman was known for straight talk. It is not the Democratic Party that we were, Dutch, it is the Democratic party that we are and
the Democratic Party that we are becoming. And the nation that we will build because we are a changing people, not fixed in stone, and not fixed in time.

The brilliance and the genius of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Barack Obama campaign is the celebration, not just of two extraordinary candidates, but is the celebration of the turning of the page of one America into a new era. [applause] An era where we are no longer consumed by the politics of us versus them, but by the politics of we. We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, do establish this Constitution to provide, among other things, basic things like domestic tranquility. And outside of the Constitution another document called the Declaration of Independence, this premise, this guiding light that all men and, yes, all women are created equal. Not the America [applause] that was, but the America that we are and the America that we are trying to become is what we celebrate. We owe so much to Harry Truman and generation of Americans that tore down the great walls of division that brought us closer together as a people. I remind people all across this country that, Mr. Chairman, on July 4th 1776 we were one kind of America. Where Kay Barnes was not even considered capable of serving in the Congress of the United States because Kay Barnes and women could not vote in our society on July 4th 1776. On July 4th 1776 African Americans found themselves in quite a different position as Americans. Struggling for a broader definition of what it meant to be an American, Recognizing this profound problem on July 4th 1852 Frederick Douglass delivered a speech rebuking what does July 4th mean to the African American who finds themself in a condition of chattel slavery. By July 4th 1859 the Democratic Party, the party that majored in localism and state concern and state rights and anti the Federal government found itself positioning itself as a political party to dissolve the Union. And to move our states out of the Union. And the nation’s first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, ran on a platform of stopping the expansion of the peculiar institution west and saving the Union, was elected the first Republican president, our sixteenth president, in 1860.

By July 4th 1963, two months before Martin Luther Kin, Jr. would deliver a dream about an America that he saw, we were becoming, and yet, another America. By July 4th two thousand and seven Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who would imagine it, would be tied and locked in a campaign for the nomination of the very party that denied them their rights on July 4th 1776. [applause, cheers]

By July 4th two thousand and eight Barack Obama will be the presumptive Democratic nominee of that party. And by July 4th two thousand and nine he will be the forty fourth president of the United States [applause] of America. [applause] That’s quite a [garbled].

And so while we struggle within the Democratic Party to broaden the definition of what it means to be an American we are not unmindful of this day in American history. That Brown versus the Board of Education decision that would soon lay the foundation for another great woman, who died within the last couple of years, Rosa Parks, to sit down on a bus. And demand that not only the schools be desegregated, but public transportation be desegregated and every facet of American life be desegregated. And so those who have been locked out of the Democratic Party and locked out of the political process today it is women and African Americans and Latinos and Gays and Lesbians and Independents and Republicans that we are attracting to the Democratic Party because of our message of hope, today those who were locked out are now the majority and we are going to redefine a new century. [applause]

Looking out over this enormous social progress I shall never forget the book written by Samuel Dewitt Proctor [sp], the substance of things hoped for when he talked about being a professor at Rutgers University and stepping on an elevator one time and he went up to the third floor and as he was heading up to the sixth floor in the building within he was teaching and he had his hat on and the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, but a young white lady got on the elevator and Dr. Proctor took of his hat and he stepped back and she said, “Dr. Proctor, Dr. Proctor, why did you take off your hat? Don’t you know that chivalry is dead?” “That we know longer live”, Dr. Proctor said “in the Victorian age,” she said. And Dr. Proctor said, “If you would be so kind as to step off of the elevator with me on the sixth floor I’d like to tell you why I took of my hat.” He said, “I, I feel that you should understand that any society that ceases to respect women is a society that is purchasing its debt on an installment plan, spiritually.” [voices] “Any man who would not respect a woman is dooming future generations to a level of disrespect because it is women ultimately who are responsible for raising and rearing our children, giving birth to the future, and yes, a new nation.” He said, “I wanted you to have unqualified assurance that should someone come on the elevator and beat you half to death they would have to go through me first.” [laughter] “That should any man try to take advantage of you in my presence, he would have to go through me first. That would have taken a long time to have said all of that, so instead of saying any of it, I simply tilted my hat.”

These are the values of Harry Truman. These are the unspoken values of decency that we as Americans would like to see in our families and in our streets again, Dutch. How you treat the least of these and how we treat people. It doesn’t require a new government program, although I fundamentally believe we need some. [laughter, applause]

But the values of human decency is an appeal to the human spirit. It’s an appeal to something else that government can’t provide. How we treat people that we walk by on a daily basis. How we feel about ourselves. How do we feel about that old golden rule, “Do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”

The idea of a more perfect union is not something that should be a fleeting dream or a fleeing memory. It is a part of who we are as a people. As we move from one definition of America to a completely different and new definition without abandoning the old. And so, Claire probably said it best. The County Executive certainly said it well. This isn’t about politics. This isn’t about us versus we. This isn’t about them. It’s about what we can become together. The politics of Democrats versus Republicans, that old divide, that comes from that old war, that [garbled] division,. I don’t want to see Republicans dieing in Iraq. I don’t want to see democrats dieing in Iraq. I don’t want to see an American die in Iraq. [applause] I don’t care what party they are in. [applause, cheers]

[garbled] We’re not looking for a health care system that works for Democrats, compared to the present one that works for Republicans. [laughter] We want a health care system that’s based upon a simple premise. That when you get sick you ought not be able to look back upon a bill. If it’s good enough for members of Congress and good enough for members of the Senate it ought to be good enough for every American [applause] regardless of their race, their sex, or their class. [applause]

[garbled] And there’s something about this Obama and this Clinton campaign that is helping us to believe again. In fact, I’ve never thought for a moment that we’ve ever stopped believing. You see the foundation, Jackson County, of who we are is a very very profound believe system. Emanuel Cleaver, I’m not so sure we fully explore beyond Sunday morning what it is we say we believe. [voices] I was in Israel a few years ago and spent some time in Egypt and in that part of the world and…My momma used to make me go to church every Sunday morning and I didn’t quite understand what, what she meant and why she would make me go to church until I went there one time and I think at a certain age it, you know, clicks on you. I didn’t realize until I was alm
ost twenty years old that Charlton Heston was not Moses. [laughter] I don’t know why but when I read the Book of Exodus I still think about Charlton Heston. [laughter] But I stood there, Reverend Cleaver, at the Red Sea and the Bible tells me that he stood there and parted the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s chariots were drowned in, in the sea. I believe it. I stood there at the Red Sea, it, it did not part for me. [laughter] I saw it part in the movie, a Cecil B. DeMille movie, I read it in the Bible, my, my faith tells me that, that man with the help of God has the power to part the Red Sea, that Pharaoh’s army was drowned. I believed it. And I still believe it. But, there’s something about me that tells me I can’t feel it, and so, and so it’s part of who I am. God, with, through man has the power to accomplish great things. Including parting the Red Sea.

Every Sunday I went to church and we’d go to church and we’re told about, about the power of God and his capacity to give birth to virgin woman. One part of me tells me that virgins can’t give birth. But there’s something about my belief system that tells me that somehow a virgin woman can give birth to a savior. I believe it. It’s a part of who I am. It’s a part of the structure of who some of us are. Believe in someone, momma said, who gave sight to the blind before cataract surgery. [laughter] Believe in someone who healed the sick, before modern medicine. Believe in someone who fed the multitudes with a few fish and a few loaves of bread. That’s what we believe. We go to church every Sunday and we, and we pray about it. Believe in someone who walked on water. Impossible. But I believe it. Believe in someone who was crucified, declared dead, buried, and on the third day, rose from the dead. [voices: “Yeah, yeah.”] Believe it. It’s impossible, but I believe it. And since I believe in [emphasis] all of these things, then why can’t I believe that we can be one people? [voice: “Amen.”] Why can’t I believe that we can build a more perfect union? [voices] Why can’t I believe that we can end the war in Iraq? Why can’t I believe that we can elect Barack Obama or wherever you stand, Hillary Clinton? Why can’t you believe that we can turn the tide on the America that was to the America that ought to be in our lifetimes? [applause] If we believe in the impossible then we can believe we can make the difference. [applause]

So Democrats, I am here because somewhere I heard psalm sung. That little becomes much [voices: “Um, hm.”] when we place it in the master’s hand. [voice: “That’s right.”] Somewhere I read, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.” Somewhere I read it’s not about our party versus the other party, it’s about bringing all Americans together and making a difference. [voices] Somewhere I read. “Be faithful over a few things, [voices] and I will make you ruler over many.” I believe that. Somewhere I read. That these parties too, at some point in time, even though we’re loyal and faithful Democrats, that these parties too shall pass. And when the parties and the politics pass that we will cohere, as Dr. Proctor suggested, in a value system that we all can [garbled] true and dear.

Hi. My name is Jesse Jackson, Jr. Without party affiliation, without title, without respect for color, or concern for skin, that I will be measured by the true content of my character, that I will measure you by the true content of your character, that we might cohere beyond the tragedies of our nation. Somehow we tend to come together around September 11 when there’s a great tragedy and [voices] shortly after the tragedy, when we fall into the politics, we start separating back into groups on how we’re going to get beyond…That we will cohere as one nation and one people. And move beyond the historic divisions and accomplish something great, not only for ourselves, but for all of humanity. This is our faith. This is the [emphasis] essence of our faith. This is what Harry Truman tried to accomplish. This is what the 44th president of the United States will ordain. Thank you and God bless you all. [cheers, applause]