"Jackson was the first presidential candidate, 1988, to plead and repeat the plight of 650,000 American farmers losing their farms within the eight years of Reagan's reign. He was the first to identify drugs as the number one menace to domestic security. He was the first and only American contender for the U.S. presidency to demand that South Africa be designated a terrorist state and treated accordingly. He was the first and only candidate to call the name of the Palestinian people; he said the words the Palestinians, and he called for self-determination, and statehood, for these beleaguered, taboo human beings. Jesse Jackson was the first and only candidate for the Democratic nomination to assert that there must be a single standard for the measurement, and protection, of human rights throughout the world: No country-not France nor Israel nor Nigeria nor South Korea nor Iran nor South Africa should be exempted from the requirements of that single standard. He was the first and only presidential contender to propose a world view profoundly alternative to the traditions of imperialist perspective. Jackson proposed that the majority of human life / the peoples of the Third World be accorded proportionate political respect, economic aid, and inventive consideration as potential social and economic partners. No longer should the Third World serve as a playpen for greedy, killer interventionist maneuvers by aging cold warriors. And he was the first and the only Republican or Democratic candidate to propose an international minimum wage."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Spiritual teachersAnti-apartheid activistsAnti-war activistsAfrican AmericansSocialists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Jesse Jackson
The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born Jesse Louis Burns; October 8, 1941 – February 17, 2026) was an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He founded the merged Rainbow/PUSH from organizations he had established earlier.
50 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Jesse Jackson →
Related Quotes
"Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educ…"
"If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it because I am somebody! Respect me! Pr…"
"That's all Hymie wants to talk about is Israel. Every time you go to Hymietown that's all they want to talk about."
"We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams."
"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and star…"
"We need a regime change in this country.... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority."
"See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based... I want to cut his nuts off. Barack, he's ta…"
"Well, on the one hand, I saw President Barack Obama standing there looking so majestic, and I knew the people in the …"
"Schools across the country celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Day today... Many schools show his historic “I Have a Dre…"
"I am somebody. I am a somebody. I am a child of God. I may not be educated but I am somebody. I may not have any mone…"