Jesse Jackson Explains His Tears For Obama

Standing with more than 200,000 Obama supporters in Grant Park Tuesday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson cried as learned that Barack Obama would become America's first African-American president.

The veteran civil rights leader, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988, explained his tears in an interview with National Public Radio (as transcribed by the Tribune's Mark Silva):

"Well, on the one hand, I saw President Barack Obama standing there looking so majestic. And I knew that people in the villages of Kenya and Haiti, and mansions and palaces in Europe and China, were all watching this young African-American male assume the leadership to take our nation out of a pit to a higher place.

"And then, I thought of who was not there,'' Jackson said on NPR News' Tell Me More. "As mentioned, Medgar Evers, the husband of Sister Myrlie. ...So the martyrs and murdered whose blood made last night possible. I could not help think that this was their night.

"And if I had one wish: if Medgar, or if Dr. King could have just been there for a second in time, would have made my heart rejoice. And so it was kind of duo-fold - his ascension into leadership and the price that was paid to get him there."

Comments

[mzkiki2u]

I THINK MR. JACKSON IS A VERY SICK MAN HE SHOULD JUST STOP THE FAKE ACT AND TRY TO BE REAL FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE

[VoiceofLogic]

Doesn't anyone remember that a couple of months ago, Jackson wanted to "cut off his xxxx's" in reference to Barack Obama.

Obama is no better. Paying lip service to veterans on veteren's day while he plans on outlawing many of the freedoms fought for and won with the blood of our war veterans.

What a bunch of hipocrits!!!

[BrentEades]

I see that the "VoiceofLogic" is not the voice of literacy. Nor of truth. Nor, most certainly, of 'logic'.

Thanks, VoiceofLogic. Your senseless ranting reminds the world of how fortunate we are to be able to say the words "President Obama", and how bigots of your ilk have become marginalized, finally, in the US.

[GregJL]

Rev. Jackson, what makes you think they weren't there? :)

[Niece]

Please. I wasn't moved at all by Jesse Jackson and those crocodile tears.

[JMBrodie]

Your call on that one. Let's hope yu don't find yourself in the same place one day -- mourning friends and being the one left to witness what they started.

[Niece]

That's why I am always careful with the way I treat people. Keeping things real all the time will eliminate the need of becoming a hypocrite.

[greguva]

For me, that was the most moving image of the night. I recognize that Jesse Jackson is a very flawed human being, and I cannot forgive him for his anti-Semitic remarks (I'm black, BTW) - remarks that were diametrically opposed to the message of Reverend King. But, whatever you think of JJ, and I do not harbor any delusions of grandeur about the man, it must have been the unforeseen culmination of an incredible journey for him. 40 years ago, he was an eyewitness to the death of Reverend King, and he lived to see MLK's dream - well, not fulfilled exactly, there's still an awful lot of work to do - but, at least a sizable downpayment has been put down on it.

[Tonjan]

I am with greguva as to the most moving image of the night. It inspired the following:

Races

I saw Jessse Jackson
Standing in the promised land
He was fighting for composure
And he was overcome.

On a balcony in Memphis
He had pointed to the place
Where he thought the bullet came from
That tried to stop this race.

He seemed to think of all the years
And all the struggling
And coming down the mountain
Without Martin Luther King.

As he stood there weeping
In that crowd in that dim park
He must have known that hope's alive
That he has played his part.

He saw and heard the passion
In the eyes and in the roar
Of all those hopeful people
Who did not hope before.

He saw and felt the steel
Of the new man now in place
But it never could have happened
Without nineteen sixty eight.

Hope has been the beacon
That has fueled this long drive
And Jesse's love and sweat and tears
Has kept that hope alive.

[greguva]

Beautiful - thanks for that!

[water57]

Jess tarnish his own role in the civil rights movement when chose to sensationalize his own role within the movement. The bright lights on TV camera became his personal movement. A lot of people got off Jess Bus, for his insensitive way treated the African American family who lost their son in racial violence. He put his own needs for the TV cameras instead of the family requested need for privacy. The murder when Benchrest NY. I am sure of the spelling of town, and the murder happened in the the 70s.

[priscianusjr]

I think you mean Bensonhurst, which is a section of Brooklyn, NY. That was in August 1989.

[tlph]

http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261650

[rangem]

jesse need s to save the drama for his momma

[billbb]

I got a certain sense that Jesse knew his time was passing, and that the torch had been passed to a generation of African-Americans that was more integrated into the power structure. This takes nothing away from the 50-year fight of that generation of Black leaders that put these younger people in the position to complete the work. Today's Black leaders stand on the shoulders of these giants, but have sublimated the anger into action, discrimination's pain into toughness of spirit, victimization into empathy and the sense of "otherness" into a need to organize and communicate with society as a whole.

It is overly simplistic to think that those of the prior generations who suffered under America apartheid would understand or support all of the changes that have come about. E.D. Nixon, who organized the Montgomery bus boycott, had a contentious and somewhat jealous relationship with the young preacher he brought in to lead the movement, one Martin Luther King. And James Meredith, whose enrollment as a student at the University of Mississippi was a pivotal moment in the American civil rights movement, has been a conservative Republican for many years. But this is all important, and marks a distinct change in American society. Rather than seeing these citizens of color as a "movement" or voting block, we see them as individuals with distinct hopes, fears and needs. And that is the real and fundamental change that Rev. King would probably have most appreciated.

[karinova]

From a young, female, black New Yorker

That was so, so well said.
I can't believe I'm seeing such evenhanded, eloquent clarity-- on such a murky subject-- in a blog comment!
Bravo!

[billbb]

Thank you kindly. In case you never believed a middle-aged White guy couldn't at least try to understand. A little. :-)

[shaaronie]

Wow! Couldn't and wouldn't have said it any better!

[elycee]

Let's put aside the politics of division. You cannot know a person's heart.
We do not need to judge if he was or was not.

We can join our new president in the politics of peace and justice.

Or,
fogettabout it.

[tlph]

Jesse Jackson used the civil rights movement to enrich himself. Read Shakedown: exposing the real Jesse Jackson.

[chronic]

Get real!


Oh and McSame lost so you get lost!

[tlph]

http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261650

[BarackMarley]

Is Obama's Victory MLK's Dream?
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/nation/is-obamas-victory-mlks-dream/

[P3]

There are two groups that have as their basis the "BIBLE"

Most people are familiar with the "religious right", which prefers physical righteousness.

Then there are the other side which deals with Love and caring for their neighbor, the poor
and the oppressed.

No matter how many "physical righteous mistakes" the Love group makes, as tlong as they stay
in Love, they are successful because God is Love and not rules.

Jesse Jackson's success is from God, the mistakes which are many are not important, what
is important is.....LOVE.

[Leon72]

I am a black male who really does not like Jackson. I think he has feelings of disdain and jealousy for Obama. In addition, if those were not crocodile tears on Tuesday night, then they were tears of a man who did not become the first Black president. Jackson, please go away. Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ofcoursejesusisblack]

Amen!

[RobertAndropolis]

As a white man I am hesitant to voice my opinion on Jackson, but am encouraged by your brave post. Jackson would have been remembered as a force for change behind his Rainbow Coalition, but during his teary reaction to a president-elect Obama I could only think that the second wish he will always have is not having had that damn microphone pick up his petty and frankly shocking revelation that he wanted to castrate Obama, essentially calling him uppity. His congressman son smartly and immediately disavowed his instantly irrelevant father's comments. That "cut-his-nuts-off" comment rendered Jackson forever obsolete and ego-challenged. Also, I am a Chicago native and I have had a real difficult time simply understanding Jackson when he talks, which makes it impossible to follow his points. Finally, the cynic in me says he was crying because he was not up on stage beside Obama, and the camera repeatedly cutting to him was an unwanted reminder of his pettiness.

[JMBrodie]

Image one: watching a friend murdered.

Image two: trying to fill shoes that grew larger with the passing years

Image three: I am somebody.

Image four: I am qualified.

You see, there is nothing wrong with the feelings you have for Rev. Jackson. He is far from a perfect person, but for some reason his failings tend to energize those who would wish him -- and the issues he championed -- away.

He is no noble savage. He is a flawed human who sought to do a great thing.

How many of us could stand up and take sthe stands he's taken. At the end of the day it was his substance that won out over style.

If you wish to see him only through the one lens, you would do him, yourself, our nation, a disservice.

Of course, if there were no such thing as racism, Jesse and Al and Martin and Malcom and the others would not have been needed. Ya know?

[chronic]

You judgement of the man needs to be adjusted.


Read more Learn more!

[tlph]

Shakedown: Exposing The Real Jesse Jackson (Hardcover)