(00:00:00) Today on the midday noon hour. We present a speech given over the weekend by the Reverend Jesse Jackson Jackson gave the keynote address at the annual Convention of the Minnesota State Bar Association in st. Paul. He titled his speech the future of Justice in America lawyers as agents of change a Democratic presidential candidate in 1984 and 88. Reverend Jackson is an ordained Baptist Minister and the leader of the national Rainbow Coalition. Here is the Reverend Jesse Jackson has been some special delight that I greet you on this occasion and I think about the fighting tradition of farmers and workers in the state think about the tradition of Humphrey and McCarthy and Monday all and and how people have come together here this n independent messages. To keep hope alive and to make the American dream real. If we ever needed that committed than the people to rise up again. and destroy clothes for freedom and justice it is now. We said last year in that campaign. The issue is fundamentally. Not so much about which party was which direction for the most fundamental issues and not about Republicans. It's about the Republic. Not about Democrats about democracy. And openness and fairness and whoever has the vision. And the commitment to openness our glass nose. Are perestroika and restructuring? And freedom and who can provide that hope earns and deserves. The people's support and so we talked about the need for bold leadership. as opposed to passive leadership about a new direction as opposed to doing the same things wrong with more vigor. And about sound ideas. Ours has been a struggle. across these centuries all of the aristocracy versus aristocracy versus to democracy even the aristocrats like the language and the sound of democracy. River Spirit is restrictive. exclusive and aristocratic we make a mistake when we limit our analysis of the nature of our challenge to make this. a true Democratic Society for all of America's people at the once the founding writers were called in the contradiction. of speaking of a democracy while themselves being aristocrats whose sense of habit Was in conflict with their sense of History. The system history was a society free of racism and sexism and feudalism. Their sense of History were free of that. Their sense of habit I ever had them Bound in racism. and sexism and classism And that's when the founding Riders. Wrote the Constitution. They looked at African-American descendants. And ask legally what shall we do with them how shall we handle them? Then they began to reason on the Assumption of them. other than us less than different from And they concluded that they are certainly a little higher than animals. but they are little less than people and so three-fifths human Is the way that we shall designate them? And that was written and codified into the original Constitution. The Constitution as written could not have survived. As amended with the Bill of Rights it has endured. Those Founders why speaking of (00:04:56) inalienable rights? the great sense of God and Mankind said that only white male property (00:05:09) owners. Had the right to vote. That white non landowners mail that not have the right to vote. the no woman had the right to vote. (00:05:30) And only under certain conditions and Indians have the right to (00:05:33) live. as human being and (00:05:39) to the extent that it was discriminatory based upon (00:05:43) race for African-Americans Hispanics and Native Americans. It was racist. The extent to which it denied women equal rights and crumpled the worth it was sexist. (00:05:56) Excessive which it did not appreciate farmers and workers and non landowners. It (00:06:01) was classist a few the listing. (00:06:06) You look at these last few days of Supreme Court decisions. (00:06:14) Now we find ourselves facing and (00:06:15) ugly. throw back in (00:06:18) time in 1965 President Johnson with the Howard University And brother Jamie the clad We Shall Overcome. He looked at the history. He counted the cost. (00:06:38) He said We Shall Overcome. Ronald Reagan (00:06:45) resisted that proposition and resented it. He never saw a Civil Rights bill he would support. Never saw a weapon. He wouldn't Buy. When mr. Reagan became (00:07:08) president. His hundred and eighty degrees shift was we shall (00:07:14) overturn. He (00:07:18) appointed like-minded judges. (00:07:21) to the supremacist Court to carry out the wishes. Some Like Chief Justice (00:07:28) rehnquist quit themselves violated the voting rights of (00:07:33) African-Americans And now I'm at the Reagan's legal hands are coming home to roost. a new five to forty five to four Court majority It's fast rolling back the clock of civil rights. Since January of this year, let us observe some rulings. of this court (00:07:58) threaten the road back Minaj is set aside programs for City contracts. Unless unrealistically strict standards of proof am it. Aim that limited (00:08:11) options for African Americans and Hispanics have been historically locked out. Didn't stop that. (00:08:19) Made it more difficult for civil rights plaintiffs to prove discrimination. based upon discriminatory effect or rather than (00:08:28) intent. Did not stop (00:08:31) there. Open the door to undoing consent decrees mandating affirmative action in employment long as the decrees have been (00:08:41) enforced and prove their effectiveness. Didn't stop there. (00:08:49) Required to the women discriminated against by seniority systems challenge those systems within 300 days after their place into operation. Even the women have not yet been personally affected by the seniority system. Didn't stop there. Just yesterday. Supreme Court bar discrimination in hiring but not discrimination on the job after hiring it Narrows the scope of legal protection. It doesn't stop there with the Supreme Court. The mr. Bush chooses Lorenzo over 28,000 pallets Machinist and flight attendants when thousands of Mine Workers dye it black and round long diseases. fighting for the light of day and abandon will comfort from the White House. It's not just (00:09:58) race. It's (00:10:01) race. It's X its class. It's narrow. It's a stricted is the average stock percent. limited our democracy The downside is the 90s rights Kurt. The upside is that since there are more locked out than locked in. If we coalesce in the Rainbow Coalition across lines of race and sex and religion the weekend win and make America America for all of its people and that's our hope. It has shifted the burden of proof from the employer to the employee. There appears to be discrimination in employment based upon statistical data the employer no longer Bears the burden of proving they are not discriminating stay at the employee must prove that the employer is discriminating. Employees must prove discrimination not by proving a discriminatory effect without proving a discriminatory intent. It's like asking the referee. in the Detroit Pistons Chicago Bulls basketball game to call not the call all files only the (00:11:34) intentional fouls (00:11:40) Thus the standard (00:11:42) of proof is more difficult. (00:11:45) The time we'll listen. The cost more (00:11:48) expensive (00:11:50) it reduces relatively wide legal discretion to have an error means of relief. And while these decisions so aim primarily. And African-Americans and people of color. They will not end there. We've always been the Weathervane for what's ahead for others? If you equal protection under the law is perverted. And now with what people of color it will not be long before we'll be reinterpreted for others as (00:12:24) well. for (00:12:26) whites and workers and (00:12:29) women and the poor (00:12:32) one thing that may not be readily recognized by the majority population is that these equal protection laws are designed to protect everyone from discrimination. But especially those who may have undergone some form of disadvantage be it economic. physical and mental handicap sex sex orientation race religion national origin Let us not forget those founding writers of the Constitution. The clad African Americans were on the 3/5 human. Therefore did not have the right to vote. women would not hold people did not have the right to vote. not man on us did not have the right to vote. Maybe of Americans did not have the right to live. Did not have the right to vote that's always been the struggle. All the Democracy the American dream challenging the aristocracy the American restricted night, man. the end result Is it kind of Beijing Justice? They massacred the students. And that was painful to see. the tank shooting at random the blood of the innocent flowing the injured left Emma burned up That was painful to see. But that's been even more pain heaped on that. And that is the arrogance of power. Of denying to the Chinese people who did not see it that it never happened. And to those who saw it that they did not see what they saw. the arrogance (00:14:48) of power (00:14:51) the attempt to wash away the blood of the innocent with (00:14:56) hoses and rainwater. (00:15:00) Nice to meet you my friends that the blood of Martyrs. Is thicker than water? And rain water and fire hoses. Cannot wash away (00:15:17) the blood of the innocent. (00:15:20) That is a power in that blood that cannot be suppressed. ultimately The people will March over the tanks to pick the tanks will not (00:15:32) Triumph. over the people (00:15:36) we must be with the people and not with the tanks. But lawyers, even as the extremes of Reagan and Jessa hams speak out for freedom and democracy in China. Never spoke out fart in Southern America or Latin America are in the Middle East and Southern Africa even as they parade. and posture themselves about the Chinese trying to obliterate and rewrite history. Be Supreme Court decisions. Kara theme the same assumptions of the ruling class of China these decisions of saying that women. Who are victims of negative action by law? Could not borrow money. Could not own land. Could not vote. Could not go to business school could not get funded. the somehow women denied by law by history by culture on an even playing field and there is no basis for women having affirmative action to offset negative action instant if the rewrite history the Native Americans Who did not meet the immigrants at the shores with bows and arrows and hostility the who met them that as friends? Don't have the right to fish. They have nothing else left. the poorest people in America the most raped the most attack the victims of a national policy of genocide if you wipe out the history. There's no basis for the fishing because you and I know a text out of context is a pretext. We must keep the context in perspective all the time. Bees ruling the saying that Hispanics who ran next against their will and then persecuted based on culture and language have no prior training. It's saying the reason why the African-American designation take some more meaning than just (00:18:49) black. Is because a (00:18:53) 250 years of legal slavery? Quit was illegal. when African American man to marry his (00:19:01) wife illegal to go to school. (00:19:07) Illegal for child to inherit his name. It's the tip to wipe out a 250 Years of Slavery a hundred years of legal segregation as if it did not exist. I submit lawyers. the predicament of the locked out the family farmers the African-Americans Hispanics the Mid-America the women their predicament must be admissible evidence in the court. the wind the great suits it must be admissible evidence. Why can you support reparations for the Japanese in California? (00:19:57) Because they are having been interned without cause. Is admissible evidence? (00:20:07) while we support 10-percent set-aside for veterans who were taken out of the society to defend the nation while we support that set aside because their predicament is admissible evidence. Probably support the building of the state of Israel because the Holocaust is admissible evidence for the we support the Marshall Plan the rebuild Europe and Japan and make 50 year loans at 2% government secured the make them the Creditor nations of the world today is because World War Two is admissible evidence. Go to the Supreme Court has ruled against us week. They're coming then the tradition of Beijing Justice. They are trying to wipe out admissible evidence. Keep America strong and make America better. the agony (00:21:09) of even discussing this Is that we should be discussing? the injustice of a savings and loan Ripple (00:21:29) they all out. The did not lick with in the redlining. a reinvestment in America (00:21:40) Or the meaning of those who had the party paid for the party. (00:21:45) We can hardly discuss. That degree of unprecedented economic violence. Just trying to protect what we've gained over the last 25 years. We cannot discuss. the impact the most devastating form of death America's ever known the international War of the opiate aim them greater measure at America. We're six percent of the world's population consuming half of the world's illegal drugs. We're not threatening our streets every day. By coming this or some isn't any allergy, but rather by cocaine crack heroin PCP angel dust. Easy access to automatic weapons designed to hunt people are not wild animals and we're dying in our streets more people died in the streets of Washington last year than there were days in the year. We should be discussing the impact. forty plus million Americans with no health insurance dying in emergency rooms because they don't have a green or yellow card to go upstairs to bed. That's empty. Waiting for those with insurance to get sick. We should be discussing how the president wants to provide capital gains benefits for the halves and dig in and cut raising minimum wage for the Working Poor. Well, then Paul lays either some with a heart and I some Welfare Queen who were then polarize jeopardize and then (00:23:43) destroyed most poor people. for the record I'm not black or brown. White It female and Young. Whether white black or brown hunger hurts. From the baby cries out at midnight in pain because it went to bed Supple if it does (00:24:07) not cried and raise or sex or religion cries out in agony. Somebody (00:24:12) must love all the babies. Somebody must love all the babies. (00:24:25) We should be discussing the fact that most poor people not on welfare. They work every day. Sharecropping on some from the farm they want soand they work every day. They change bears in this hotel this morning. Big cookout children's food in school. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They're made and Genesis and yet they can't buy bread chief of they can't buy Nifty but they cannot educate their children cheaper. They work every day in the hospital's they they mop up the floor to clean up the germs. They wipe out the responders when you're (00:25:20) sick. The empty slop jars and bedpans because no (00:25:25) job is beneath them and yet when they get sick, they cannot afford the line the bed they're made up every day. We must be fighting for national health care plan for all of our people. That's the how your agenda The means test for Health Care must be sickness. People are going to stop by possible on the way home and working pick up a little surgery while they're shopping. Jesus had a means (00:26:06) test. for medicine to Healing The Sick (00:26:12) a woman heard he was coming to town. She didn't have the status and the pedigree to get up (00:26:18) front. She couldn't get position. (00:26:22) He was determined. She crawled through the crowd. Bibles that gets at some point in time. She (00:26:28) touched the Hem of His Garment (00:26:33) I want to for a long time why he didn't stop? Either ask the question who's tugging at (00:26:38) me? Off what's wrong with (00:26:41) you? Bob of the guess. He's never turned around. You never looked in the face. The fact that she was sick. Was the means test the moral means test. for health care plan if we can bail out. Savings and Loans to the tune of 200 to 300 billion dollars and you some crooked term cold off budget. We can bail out a thunder thousands and the phone with and Bella the American Healthcare System for all of its people. While the supremacist court has also the defensive organ about these decision is about to make we must be fighting for legislative remedy and relief in doing so and Coalition and dramatically in great numbers. They must not bother thousands we resist going (00:27:54) back. We fought too hard. (00:27:59) We bled to profusely. We've died too young. I sacrifices have been too great. We will not go back. We will not surrender. Will not let them pull the rise US based upon race and sex and class and religion. We're going to make the American dream (00:28:20) Rio we should be focused on the impact. of this flow of drugs I want the hospital in Washington last Sunday three weeks ago. the mayor now watch six two babies a third of them born between 1.7 and 2.4 pounds rain damaged a water on the brain. ten of them addicted to drugs ten of them with AIDS (00:28:55) the third of them born to mothers (00:29:00) teenage mothers young women who have been abandoned by young men young men and young women who had an ethical (00:29:08) collapse Engage in sex without love had an unhealthy and unwanted, baby. Check in the hospital on the forest name and address and then checked out. And let those babies abandoned. (00:29:25) Anybody who abandons a baby (00:29:28) the eyes may be wide (00:29:29) open? Something within them has died. (00:29:33) But it's all around the country with another hospital Los Angeles 750 to 1500 babies are born the year low birth weight. addicted 8th of drugs the nine months of prenatal (00:29:47) care it costs less than a thousand dollars. (00:29:53) Low, birth weight baby (00:29:55) up to two thousand dollars a day 20 weeks in the hospital. (00:30:00) Be Complicated by AIDS. About drug addiction up to three thousand dollars a day. I held a baby in my arms three months old which had already caused a 350,000 dollars in medical care. the gradation about day Paul be argued is against drugs to our youth we give the impression. That's just a youth (00:30:25) problem after all Youth and not flying those planes in this country and they are not driving those votes (00:30:35) and they're not really picking picking up at the (00:30:37) border. And we're spending a hundred fifty billion a year on drugs and and ask him if you my friends Bankers are London that money and then the kids are being (00:30:46) the head of the work of the devil in this process. But it's Heaven debilitating impact upon the morale and morals of our country the great issues about they to be sober and saying insensitive. (00:31:03) The alternative to the dope is the Hope. We can fight these Court rollbacks. Because we still have the right to vote. and that's hope we still can't vote for legislators who are committed to a democracy. and that's hope (00:31:25) the hostility of Reagan and the passivity of bush will not last (00:31:29) always. and that's hope (00:31:33) And it gets dark sometimes if you do not surrender the morning (00:31:37) comes. (00:31:39) And the fact that we know the morning is (00:31:40) coming. and that's hope (00:31:45) and it was in America. They have the resources. We only need the wheel. We have the resources. That's hope. I put forth a plan. (00:31:54) the rebuild our nation now think about the mob has come back of Europe and Japan it was the right thing to do. How did it happen? We had the will to do it. A 25-year plan not a three-year plan 25 year plan. fifty year plan of two percent loans government secured with Germany, Japan and France and Great Britain still have 20 years more to go. On two percent loans made 30 years ago, but not an awful lot of intended to pay them back with 9.8 treasury notes. What can we do? Well, if you're explaining redlining that's explaining a door has been closed and explain the budget that particular spending another door has been closed and expanding closed doors does not lend itself to Hope but there's a way out. We have 800 plus billion dollars in public Pension funds the workers money. Well that rigging 8 and private Pension funds. Is the workers money? Why can't we be imaginative and have plans as bold as the challenge? (00:33:12) Why can't we build an American (00:33:13) Investment Bank? like a nun to a domestic World Bank Why can't we take ten percent of public Pension funds government secured the eliminate the risk? Eight billion livers four or five times a year why can't males make some property available for affordable housing? And States give some tax adjustments as incentives. And put people in houses and put people back to work. Why can't we do it over a 10-year period That's a 2 billion time for five. We have the resources over Justin. What about fiduciary responsibility? Is it not the most responsible thing to do to put America back to work? Is it not responsible to build affordable? It's not tricky and treacherous like more golf clubs and more (00:34:04) casinos. How do we rebuild New York? We build New York out with Pension funds properly managed and put need over risk. Is it for douche every responsibility to take the workers money? And invest in South African allowed slave labor to undercut organized labor and risk. Our credibility. Is it fiduciary responsibility to use the workers money to invest in non-union companies and undercut their jobs. I suspect not we must Define fiduciary responsibility. And the way that makes sense nice a reinvestment in America in slums and say Farms make sense. (00:34:44) We have the mentality. We must have the will to do so (00:34:49) it's a lawyer's we had one of these dark hours. Because they is. passive leadership from the White House one of these dark hours The Congress is trying to be grouped determine who's going to lead it with no discussion of where it's going. It's one of these dark hours. And yet when it's Dawkins (00:35:12) We can see the stars more clearly. (00:35:15) It's one of these dark hours if you keep on looking at the White (00:35:19) House and the Congress for Relief, it's going to get dark and still. (00:35:25) The relief we seek never came White House Down. (00:35:31) Always came from your house and my house up to (00:35:36) 54. The struggle for women's suffrage did not come from an old male White House. (00:35:50) It came from women with a will to suffer. to make life better Who Gon Do all the struggling the victim (00:36:02) the slave master is responsible for slavery, (00:36:05) but the slave must be responsible for abolition. (00:36:09) The segregated all is responsible for segregation, but the (00:36:12) segregated must be responsible for breaking it (00:36:15) up. The sexiest is responsible for sexism. But but the victim must must break it up. The color miles is responsible colonialism, but the colonise must break it up. The oppressor is responsible for oppression, but the oppressed must break it up. It's the burden. Is upon those who want the morning to come those who have an appetite for justice. (00:36:41) So the burden is upon us and we have the ability to we have the will. the 54 Supreme Court decision Did not come from a White House speech. (00:36:54) and humble, Kansas family Let the court my lawyers that they could not afford. Lawyers who sense of justice would not allow them to miss the opportunity to do justice not just advocated but to do it and they won that (00:37:12) suit. The right to vote. I remember, dr. King receiving his Nobel Peace Prize. receiving on a White House reception in the East room force and the Lyndon Johnson, I thank you for these honors, but All Americans need the right to vote. And then the Johnson and effects and I have the power to push a button and destroy the world. I can wave my hand and neighbors will alter their course in the sea and Impalas would shift their flight plans. I have the power to change the course of all relationships, but I cannot Grant American citizens the right to vote. The Congress is too conservative. He should to the book The Congress not the king did not leave angry hostile of disappointed. He went to Selma, Alabama and we the people Throwing a Goodman the chain the to Jews and African-American bulldozer to death with their eyes wide open. They died to make America better. It didn't come from the White House other countries. Medgar Evers shot in his back door steps and bled to death. He died to make America better. Jimmie Lee Jackson 15 year-old African-American student shot in the back. He died to excite our conscience to make America better brother Louis saw a white mother from Detroit. (00:38:37) Call nigger lover for trying to help us get the right to vote blank brains blown that Point Blank Range. (00:38:42) She died to make America better (00:38:44) Reverend James Reeb of white Minister from from Boston beaten to death in Selma, Alabama. It was the blood of the innocent. It was it was the master kit was beige Jean. Somehow the bull Connor's (00:38:58) and the gym clocks could not wash that blood away. (00:39:01) Somehow it passed by the house. Somehow it resistant Congress could not ignore the power of the blood of the innocent. (00:39:12) And so there will be freedom in democracy in China. And so we will end the arms race. And so we will clean up the environment. And (00:39:24) so can the farmers will be revived. And so that will be peace (00:39:29) in the Middle East. (00:39:31) It's what I will be freedom (00:39:32) in South Africa. (00:39:34) And so America will remain the hope of the Free World. Over the painful (00:39:38) Paradox to see students in in Beijing walk with the Statue of Liberty on their shoulders. inspired by Gorbachev But no sense of motivation from our leadership, but there is hope the cost of power (00:39:56) really is in the people (00:40:00) in a free democracy. So let's keep a great nation. Great. And make a great nation better. (00:40:08) Lawyers, let's fight the right fight. Let's Advocate justice, but that's not enough. Let's do justice. (00:40:17) And love mercy and walk on the before our gods. (00:40:21) That's not enough. fight for your neighbor not just for yourself. the cost you in next that's not enough. Those were down today. The only justification for looking down on them and that you're going to stop and lift them up. But for the grace of God, it would be you don't stop (00:40:45) there. You're the hunter told me one cold day right here in Minnesota. Just how I look back over my years. They wonder why I called Richard Nixon on my birthday. And I did so because at this setting in my life the Sun. growing them I determined that we must forgive. Redeem and move on and so suffering breeds character. and character breeds faith (00:41:18) and the in faith will not disappoint. (00:41:21) and freedom and democracy and justice will prevail God Bless America. Thank you very much. The Reverend Jesse Jackson speaking over the weekend at the Minnesota State Bar Association meeting in st. Paul the title of Jackson speech the future of Justice in America lawyers as agents of change.