A man who cannot be enticed by money or intimidated by the threat of jail or death has two of the strongest weapons that anyone has to offer.
— Jesse Jackson
People always grow and mature.
I came to the conclusion that in order to end racial barriers, I needed to run for the office of the president and put forth an agenda of social justice and world peace. In addition, I concluded that someone needed to run and challenge the liberal orthodoxy.
When they wrote the Constitution, only white male landowners had the right to vote.
You may choose your mate, but you cannot deny someone else the right to choose their mate.
I know how to run a nationally paced campaign.
There have been more people disenfranchised in Washington than there have been in Kuwait.
I had to steal to survive.
My very first recollection of life on earth was waking up in bed with my mother, and she was showing me a picture of my father, Charles Jackson, with a group of soldiers.
We've been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are.
The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president. Obama has that voice. It has to be used.
We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.
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.
So here we are today with a new conversation. When University of Georgia plays Georgia Tech, it's uniform color versus skin color. We have - we've overcome that level of racial fear.
At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.
It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.
I know they are all environmentalists. I heard a lot of my speeches recycled.
Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.
In tough economic times, desperate people do desperate things, and the abortion rate goes up.
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.
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.
If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote.
The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.
If the American people in a matter of months can love the people of Kuwait, whom they have not seen, they can love the people of our nation's capital just as well.
I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.
We reveal our joys and successes, we conceal our pain.
Urban America has been redlined. Government has not offered tax incentives for investment, as it has in a dozen foreign markets. Banks have redlined it. Industries have moved out, they've redlined it. Clearly, to break up the redlining process, there must be incentives to green-line with hedges against risk.
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.
Watch the walls come down, whether it's in the South or on Wall Street. When the walls come down, what do we find? More markets, more talent, more capital and growth. Which means that the race and sex discrimination stunt economic growth. It's not good for capitalism. It's not good for America's growth. And it's not morally right.
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.
In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.
If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.
So many bright stars, bright in life, burn out quickly.
I had gained a greater appreciation of hearing the concerns of woman, doctors, and so many others.
Those who have the most wealth and the most property, their children have the first, the best, and the most.
The law protects you from being abused. It doesn't threaten your lifestyle for someone else to have the right to exhibit their lifestyle.
Any attempt to dilute my support for Sen. Obama will not succeed.
I take my role seriously as a pastor.
Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.
I remember being taught my place.
Many kids come out of college, they have a credit card and a diploma. They don't know how to buy a house or a car or health insurance or life insurance. They do not know basic microeconomics.
Look at the coded language the Right is using against President Barack Obama. Openly calling him a liar in Congress, saying he is 'not a Christian, he was not born here, he is not one of us.' That makes addressing such issues trickier for the first African-American in the White House.
We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work.
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.
I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true.
Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.
If you run, you might lose. If you don't run, you're guaranteed to lose.
A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.
