If Puerto Rico had two senators and four congressmen, it ’d be all the difference in the world, if you’re at the table with two senators and four congressman, you can bargain and negotiate leverage. Puerto Rico has no leverage. It can only make moral appeals.

Jesse Jackson

Categorized in : Politics

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

Jesse Jackson

democracy freedom political

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.

Jesse Jackson

first-love numbers long

You know, people'd always ask "Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?" They never seen the house I'm running from.

Jesse Jackson

white running people

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

Jesse Jackson

odds god perfect

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

Jesse Jackson

family birthday inspirational

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

Jesse Jackson

vision leadership challenges

That's just like America. It's made up of lots of different people. We're all different colors, different ages, we do different jobs -- but it takes all of us black people, white people, brown people, men and women, young and old, working in the factories, working in the fields, working in offices, working in stores -- it takes a lot of different kinds of people to get the job done for America.

Jesse Jackson

color jobs men

That Obama I would like to cut his nuts off.

Jesse Jackson

cutting nuts

That's all Hymie wants to talk about is Israel. Every time you go to Hymietown that's all they want to talk about.

Jesse Jackson

israel want

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.

Jesse Jackson

fighting white jobs

His foreparents came to America in immigrant ships. My foreparents came to America in slave ships. But whatever the original ships, we are both in the same boat tonight.

Jesse Jackson

slave-ships diversity america

It is a historical error for those who were not there to just refer to August 28th as 'I Have a Dream' speech day. That is a real disservice to those who were there. It was a sad day. It was not a celebration environment.

Jesse Jackson

errors real dream

When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use - having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.

Jesse Jackson

military war father

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

Jesse Jackson

black-history dream motivational

Semi-automatic weapons are not just about gun control, they're about national security. You know that these weapons can shoot down airplanes, they can blow up railroads. This is really a whole national security issue.

Jesse Jackson

airplane gun blow

It's not enough to be quiet. Quietness is the absence of noise. We need peace, the presence of justice and to be - and so people here can coexist and live together.

Jesse Jackson

together justice people

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

Jesse Jackson

government goal dream

Race designation is a political designation.

Jesse Jackson

designation political race

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

Jesse Jackson

slums born

In tough economic times, desperate people do desperate things, and the abortion rate goes up.

Jesse Jackson

tough-economic-times abortion people