Jesse Jackson Memorial Service

"I intend to die with my shoes on." And he taught us that if you're faithful over a few things, God will make you ruler over.

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And he taught us the faith the side of a mustard seed. You can move, mountains, win peace, free hostages, give hope to the masses. So we remember him not for what he accumulated, but for what he gave. He used his gifts to give voice to the voiceless, free prisoners and build the Rainbow Coalition, bringing together the rejected stones of society, instilling hope in them, and reminding them that as God's children, they are somebody special.

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He was deeply involved in the political struggles of his time, but his gift was that he could rise above them. It's not about the left wing or the right wing. It takes two wings to fly. For him, the goal was always the moral center. His campaigns called America to move from racial battlegrounds to economic common ground, and onto moral high ground. And that vision allowed him to transcend the limitations of his circumstances.

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He endured insults and dismissals, rejection, yet he kept appealing to our better angels and urged us to keep on keeping on. Even as his body began to fail, his spirit and imagination never did. He talked about organizing a peace mission to Ukraine. He wanted to appeal directly to Putin. He wanted to organize the ministers to help negotiate peace in Haiti. The reverend's mind and will was strong even as his body failed him.

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He was very clear about the challenges we faced today. He believed the progress made during what historians called the Second Reconstruction. The era that grew out of the civil rights movement and expanded democracy for millions was now facing renewed resistance from the highest levels of our government. The foolish denial of threats to democracy and to decency, corrosive inequality, catastrophic climate change, endless wars, a renewed arms race, global pandemics, and more.

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And he reminded us that in each of these crises, it is always the least of these who suffer first and suffer the most. And that conviction shaped his ministry. In his final months, he spent a lot of time with his grandchildren, private time. No moms and dads allowed. He loved it and they loved it. And after he passed, I asked each of my children, Skye, Yusef, Cassius, Atticus, Mathias, what was their last conversation with their grandfather? I asked, "What did he say to you?"

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Each of them separately and individually thought for a moment and told me, "Dad, granddad told me he loved me." And those are the last words I remember him ever saying to me as well. Wherever he traveled, he made time for children at schools, at churches, at hospitals. Even in prisons, he believed that inside every child was of some body waiting to emerge and that with faith and support and hope, they can achieve excellence. He would say," I know because I was one of them." And today, his legacy will not be carried forward by family alone. This type of work does not pass by blood. It passes by spirit.

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Thus, it is in his name that we have committed ourselves, that the Rainbow Coalition will continue. We have recommitted ourselves to its founding principles. Reach out to engage new leaders across the country, and restructured and revived its operations. And we'll put the good Reverend, my father, to rest today, and we'll honor him by building upon his work and taking up the challenge.

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And so while he would be delighted to witness this gathering of friends and allies, and sorry to not be here to conduct it personally, he would be intent that we stay the course and carry on the struggle for justice. I thank you all for being a part, not just of his work over the years, but to the shared commitment of our future together. Keep hope alive.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (02:00:30):

Come on, let's celebrate our brother, Mr. Yusef Jackson. I want to apologize in advance to Governor Gavin Newsom, California, Governor Wes Moore, Maryland. Come on, clap your hands and let's celebrate them. So grateful to have you. I want to apologize in advance as I introduce the governor of the greatest state in these United States of America, Governor JB Pritzker.

JB Pritzker (02:01:06):

You said it. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Justice in a too often unjust world. For Reverend Jesse Jackson, each day, each day was a new opportunity to bring justice in a too often unjust world. His ambition, the north star of his advocacy, was to shape a world where justice is not an anomaly, but a constant, where fairness and equity and dignity are so ubiquitous in our lives, they simply flow amidst us like water.

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Reverend Jackson was, at once, a mighty roaring river, able to create movements and galvanize masses with his words and his passion. And a gentle brook, able to provide guidance and comfort to the beleaguered and the bereaved. He could lift up and connect with an audience of millions with the same intimacy and fervor that he could with an audience of one. He inspired us not just in his conviction, but in his joy. Not just in his righteous anger at injustice, but in his boundless love for communion. Not just in his words, but in his deeds. He kept hope alive.

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Now, I find it somewhat difficult to memorialize a man whose presence always loomed so large among us. You could still feel his presence in this room with us here at the House of Hope. You can still feel his presence in so many ways. Every day, he would honor us in the way that today we honor him. And you could feel his spirit in the movements for justice that have grown from the seeds that he tilled.

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Now, to the world, Jesse Jackson was an ambassador of hope for the oppressed, who met with kings and queens, and presidents and dictators, and clergy of all the great religions. But here in Chicago, he was our neighbor. He was our friend. We were so proud. We are so proud. Here, his message of hope was one he offered in a friendly smile to the child playing in front of their home, or the tap on the shoulder for the young man looking for just a little bit of encouragement. He taught us to expand our ambitions and dare to imagine a better world, and to be kind and decent to one another. He brought enormous pride to the people of this city and this state. And on a more personal note, it has been an honor that my relatively short time in public office overlapped with Reverend Jackson's long tenure.

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And let me assure all of those who are here today, that even as his body started to fail him, the Reverend's mind remained sharp. He never failed, never failed to pull me aside at an event to ask about something in the news or offer a word of advice or encouragement. He was politically connected. He knew. He shared an affliction common to all those in this room. He loved the political game all the way to the end.

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And while we know that we shared him with the whole world, Reverend Jackson belonged to Chicago and Chicago belonged to him. He was ours and we were his. "I am somebody," that wasn't just a slogan. It was his credo. It was Jesse's blessing on each of us, on all of us. A pronouncement of pride and accomplishment, pride and determination. It was his reminder of the incredible power that each of us has to lift ourselves up, the gift of dignity in our personhood that God had bestowed upon us. The power that each of us wields that can change the world, I am somebody.

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To his beloved wife, Jackie. To his loving children, Santita and Jesse Jr., Jonathan, Yusef, Ashley, Jacqueline, and the entire family, MK and I and our whole family grieve with you in your loss. While Reverend Jackson meant so much to the world, you were the world to him. We will forever be grateful for your sacrifice in sharing him with the rest of us.

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To honor his legacy, let today be a new beginning, not an ending. Let's follow in his footsteps and be trailblazers and not just pathfinders. Let's bring justice to a too often unjust world until it rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. May Jesse Jackson's memory be a blessing to us all.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (02:08:49):

Again, everybody, as we celebrate Reverend Jackson's life, let's again welcome President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden. Let's celebrate them. Again, let's celebrate President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton. Can we celebrate, again, President Barack Obama?

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And can we show our love for Vice President Kamala Harris? While Reverend Jackson was a global citizen, Chicago was home base. And so please help me welcome the mayor of the greatest city in the world. Sweet Home Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson. Come on.

Mayor Brandon Johnson (02:09:55):

Thank you for that introduction, and good morning everyone. It is truly my honor to be here today as mayor of the city of Chicago to celebrate a man who was my dear friend, a mentor and a source of inspiration, Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson Sr.

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And thank you to Mother Jackson, the entire Jackson family for the grace and the courage that you all exude. And Mother Jackson, we don't mourn and grieve as the world because we are not ignorant to what has happened, and you will see him again. That's not a promise from a politician, but from the word. And he said, "If it weren't true, I would not have told you so."

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Now, to the Jackson family, I'm not trying to start any trouble, but I looked at the program and I didn't see any West Side representation. I didn't see nobody from the Church of God in Christ on the program. So, I know I represent the city of Chicago, but God bless you, Bishop Shears. I guess they wanted us to get out on time.

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But on behalf of my wife and my entire family, I say thank you for the care that you have shown us. From one first family to another, we love you. By evidence in this audience, the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois and the world, the country agrees. One quick story. Reverend Jackson may have been the most competitive individual that I've ever met. So a few years ago, we were wrapping up a meeting on the west side of Chicago at Reverend Johnny Miller's church, and Zeke, we started talking about football.

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And at the time, Lamar Jackson was on his way to becoming the MVP of the National Football League. And I looked at Reverend and I said, "Now there's a Jackson that's really making a name for himself."

Mayor Brandon Johnson (02:12:01):

... and you know Reverend did not like that. And he looked at me and he said, "You know I played that position." And he said, "You know I was better than Lamar Jackson." Zeke, true story. He said, "He might be taller, faster, and stronger, but I'm better than him." And I said, "Reverend, well, that doesn't leave too many more categories to determine greatness." And I said, "In all seriousness, what makes you better?" He said, "Because of my instincts."

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See, in sports, you hear about how athletes have a good feel for the game. Something innate that can't be coached that allows them to read the field and make split second decisions that ultimately position their team to win. Reverend will be remembered certainly as an incredible oratory champion, but to the people in Chicago, we knew him as a brilliant strategist, a master negotiator, an organizing savant. His instincts.

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See, he didn't shy away from the painful realities of racism and hatred, but he had a God-given ability to bring people in, to encourage them in and to enlist them into the fight of our collective liberation. It was his instincts that understood that labor and faith were one and the same as Dr. King prophesied. It was his instincts to stand up against school closures and the shuttering of mental health clinics. It was his instincts that led protests down Michigan Avenue when a boy's life was taken by a police officer and then government decided to cover it up. It was his instincts. It was his instincts to run in '84 and '88, but not in '92 to make way for somebody in the deep south and a brother on the south side to become president of these United States. It was his instincts. See, I had the privilege to accompany Reverend to Selma one year and, while we were there, he recounted the days and weeks that were spent organizing to get folks to walk with him across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And he said, "Now that history has proven us to be right," he said that, "Everybody and their mama was on that bridge." But he knew the struggle from going town to town and he was calling people out of isolation and into community, understanding that the bridge is a symbol that burdens all of us. It's what connected us. It's what was waiting for us on the other side. He had a feel. His instincts understood that that bridge was a representation of the cross.

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See, it was the [inaudible 02:14:47] counters of the world and state sanctioned violence that they unleashed on our people. It was a cross brought to bear by the most egregious alignment that can materialize in a fight against inequality. Reverend Jackson's instincts understood the words of James Baldwin who said that, "Ignorance and power alive is the most ferocious enemy of justice." But his instincts understood that if there's a cross to bear, we need a symbol of a promise. And that's when he formed the Rainbow Coalition that said that whosoever will let them come. It would be necessary for the movement to build the future that he saw where America could finally live up to her ideas.

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And when I think of Selma and that storied march across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, I know that Reverend Jackson knew exactly how much wickedness and hatred waited for them on that bridge. Beaten, abused, intimidated, they marched anyway. They bore the cross because they understood that on the other side of the bridge, his instinct said there's a win. And see, in America, we find ourselves at a bridge and we are confronted in this moment. And that bridge is now described as borders where borders get to determine how human dignity is determined by which side of the border you live on. He understood the bridge. And so now we are in the midst of a choice, to choose hope over despair, light over darkness, love over hate, because he knew there was too much to gain on the other side of the bridge.

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Bishop shared, "I think I feel my help coming." Because on the other side of the bridge, Rodney, housing as a human right. On the other side of the bridge, healthcare for all. On the other side of the bridge, safe and affordable cities, accessible transportation, finally fully funding our public education system. It is time to cross the bridge, you all, to build an economy that works for all, Black, brown, white, Asian, young, old. It is time for the ultra-rich to pay their fair share on taxes on the other side of the bridge. Reverend, you crossed your bridge. We know our assignment. We see you on the other side. God bless you.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (02:17:09):

Reverend Mayor Brandon Johnson, everybody. And the whole church said-

Crowd (02:17:18):

Amen.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (02:17:20):

Amen. Thank you so much. Before we get ready to bring the next set of speakers and we look forward to what you will share, straight ahead is a clock. It's a clock. We would love for you to help us as we press towards our goal. Hasn't this been fantastic thus far? Can we thank all of our speakers and participants? Can we please welcome one of Reverend Jackson's favorites, Ms. Opal Staples?

Opal Staples (02:18:09):

Come on, put your hands together real quick with me.

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Here we go.

MUSIC (02:18:10):

Teachers, keep on teaching.

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Oh, are you preaching?

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Come on and keep on preaching.

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Oh, yeah.

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Keep on coming on.

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Lovers, keep on loving.

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Believers, keep on believing.

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All of you sleepers, just stop sleeping.

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Because it won't be long.

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Here we go. One more time. You ready?

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I'm so darn glad he let me try it again.

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Because my last time on earth, I lived a whole world of sin.

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I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then

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I'm going to keep on trying until reach my highest ground.

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Come on, put your hand together just like this.

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Come on.

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Until I reach my highest ground.

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Listen, no one's going to bring me down.

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Until I reach my higher ground.

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Y'all ready to help me sing a little bit?

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Listen, we're going to go higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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We need to go.

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Higher.

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We got to go.

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Higher.

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Someone.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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Higher.

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I'm so darn glad he let me try it again.

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Because my last time on earth, I lived a whole world of sin.

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I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then

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I'm going to keep on trying until reach my higher ground.

Reverend James Meeks (02:22:55):

Come on, give it up for Opal Staples. One of Reverend Jackson's favorite singers. Opal Staples. I was told that I didn't introduce myself. When the service started, I just got up and started talking. So my name is Reverend James Meeks. And for 38 years, I pastored the House of Hope, the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago. Quick little story, 25 years ago when we were building, Jonathan, this building. I drove in one night. I had Reverend in the car. I had Reverend with me. About 25 years ago, we had the roof. The roof was up, the walls were up, but we didn't have everything inside. And I drove in here one night about 9:00 at night. It was dark. It was muddy. It was dingy. And Reverend Jackson got out of the car. He stood and looked around and he looked at me and said, "My funeral's going to be at this building." He told me that.

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So that's who I am. They told me to introduce myself. And they told me to introduce the other guy who keeps jumping up here, who's up here with me. I want Governor Gavin Newsom to know since he went off about how great our governor is, he lives in California. Pastor Charles Jenkins, who pastored the Fellowship Baptist Church over 25 years where the chairman of the Board of Rainbow pushed the Reverend Clay Evans was the founder and the pastor. And we are so happy to be doing this together. All right. Now we have expressions from James Jim Reynolds, chairman, CEO of Loop Capital, CK Hoffler. She's the chairman of the board of Rainbow Push. Thomas Ricketts, who is the president of the Chicago Cubs. Anybody need to pray for the Cubs? And Isaiah Thomas, they will come in that order. Come on, give it up.

James Jim Reynolds (02:25:35):

Thank you all. It's wonderful to be with you. I usually speak a lot, but I generally speak at finance conferences, talking about stocks and bonds, and I never speak behind speakers like this. I tapped Isaiah on the shoulders and I said, "Isaiah, we in trouble." And he comforted me by saying, "Jim, we ain't got a shot." So I said, "All right." The family, the Jackson family, kind of like my own family, as we've been close these last 30 years, as I really became very close with your dad, obviously. My sincerest condolences to you all and to everybody here in Chicago, they got to know this great man. The country preacher was one of a kind. Now, I showed this speech to my wife this morning as I was shaving and she said, "You know you can't call him a country preacher." I said, "Sandy, he called himself the country preacher." And Pastor Jenkins bailed me out by saying the country preacher. I just, as I was asked to speak, I asked the family, "What should I speak about?" Now, everybody knows me and they know Jim Reynolds only knows one thing, finance. That's it. And so I said, "Let's talk about the businesses that he built and the impact that he had on Wall Street, the impact that he had on corporate America and how he changed the economic landscape for all of us here that enter this business." I met Reverend Jackson in 1997, the year I started my firm and the same year he started the Wall Street project.

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I had a chance to see and be a part of many of the things that he built and many of the people that he influenced, for whatever the reason he liked having me around all the time. We traveled to Africa together. We traveled to Europe together. We traveled to the Middle East together and he did one thing that whole time, just one thing the whole time, he fought for other people. That's all he did. I knew from a young fellow about his Operation Bread Basket, and I knew intuitively that when Blacks went in these grocery stores to shop, they wasn't really working there. And if they were working back in those days, AMP and those places, they certainly didn't have jobs that they could move up in. And he raised that issue and raised it and raised it with the power that he had, which was the power of the people to change it.

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And he did. Then he went on to do a few things, but he tackled Wall Street of all things. And I went with him to tackle Wall Street. One of the reasons that I'm standing here and have the business that I have today is because he tackled Wall Street and many of us here is because he tackled Wall Street. He challenged the pension funds and the banks and the corporations that really wouldn't hire us to do anything. We couldn't do a bond deal. We couldn't do a stock deal. We couldn't do a M&A transaction. We couldn't do anything until a man who was... And we all Harvard, Northwestern, MBAs, and a man who had no financial training whatsoever changed the whole thing for blacks in the financial landscape.

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Then he called me one day, he said, "Jim, give me 5,000 to $10,000." I said, "Why do you need 5,000 to $10,000?" He said, "I'm going to buy some shares of stock. You're just going to buy a few shares of stock. What is that going to do? That's going to get me inside of the corporate boardrooms to talk because I'm a shareholder and I can attend shareholder meetings." And he attended those shareholder meetings and raised the issues of why are you corporations boycotting black people and why are you boycotting black financial firms and other firms? He changed the landscape and then he did it again when he was the first person, the first human being to ask the question, why aren't there any blacks on the corporate boards? Now, a lot of people say they do it now, but he did it then. And I met a lot of people that got on corporate boards and that said, Reverend Jackson didn't really have anything to do with me on the corporate board because I'm qualified and I have particular expertise in the subject matter.

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I said, "Well, you had expertise in the subject matter for a long time, but you didn't get invited on any corporate boards until Reverend Jackson said, 'Put him on corporate board.'" I've seen Reverend Jackson fight in meetings for contractors, for entrepreneurs, folks that didn't have much, and he got nothing out of it. And he fought like it was his for his family and it was just for others. The legacy of Reverend Jackson that he leaves behind, in my view, will forever be unmatched by anyone. A man that did so much for so many and never asked once for anything for himself, not once.

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Reverend Jackson, from my world that I see, could have made millions of dollars at any point by accepting any of the many corporate boards appointments that he was offered, but he didn't. He would have made millions by just asking folks for a little piece of the fees or the businesses that they built under his influence, but he didn't. Money didn't motivate him, and I know that's a fact. Helping people did, and that's just what he was born to do. A phrase that's used a lot is one in a million, but as I think of my brother, I use one phrase, one of one. There's never going to be another one like the country preacher. Thank you.

CK Hoffler (02:33:38):

[foreign language 02:33:37].

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Ladies and gentlemen, I just wanted to make sure y'all were paying attention. To the incomparable, fantastic, fabulous, magnificent mother of the movement, Dr. Jacqueline Jackson, get on your feet and recognize her, ladies and gentlemen. To the entire Jackson family, talented Santiago Jackson, Congressman Jesse Lewis Jackson, soon to be Congressman again, Jesse Lewis Jackson. Congressman Jonathan Jackson, our president and CEO of Rainbow Push and everything, Yusef Dubois Jackson, Dr. Jacqueline Jackson, little Jackie, but Dr. Jacqueline Jackson as well. Brilliant. And to the very talented Ashley Jackson. We say to you today that we thank you. We thank you for sharing your father, your husband with the world each and every day, because it is because of you, that he had the courage, the energy, and the inspiration to do what he did and to our mother again of the movement. We thank you. We thank you.

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So to our presidents, my, my, my. To President and Dr. Biden, to President Barack Obama. And we going to recognize Michelle Obama as well. To President Bill Clinton and Secretary Clinton, yes. Yes. And to Madam Vice President, Kamala Harris. We want to thank you. Thank you for all that you did. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for your solidarity, continued solidarity with Reverend Jackson. Rainbow Push, Citizenship Education Fund. Push, push, excel. And Reverend Jackson, yes, I was his lawyer for 38 years. I am 37 years old. You see. And I want you all to know for those of you who don't know that Reverend Jackson, like Dr. King and those giants before him, understood the synergy between activism, freedom fighting, and the law. He understood that. You had to have lawyers behind you, not all in front of you, behind you, because what do lawyers do?

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You protect. You get people, if you have to, out of jail, you help to get permits, you organize. You are behind the great iconic leaders. And just as Dr. King had Thurgood Marshall, the incomparable Constance Baker Motley, Charles Hamilton, Houston, and all of those magnificent jurors, Reverend Jackson had a legal team. John Bustamante, Willie Gary, my mentor, Johnny Cochran. You see, all of these people and more, I think I saw Cleo Fields in the audience. Janice Mathis. I could go on and on and on. He understood the significance and supported lawyers, Barbara Arnwine, Darrell Jones. And I say that because the National Bar Association, I'm a past president, we celebrated a hundred years recently. 55 of those years, Reverend Jackson was our inspiration. We can trace Reverend Jackson's role with the National Bar and the building and development of our organization back to Senator Arthenia Joyner, who's in the audience, who was also his representative in Tampa, Florida, by the way, in 1984 and 1988. We had presidents like Lawrence

Thomas Ricketts (02:43:22):

Good afternoon, everyone. I was sitting here a little bit ago thinking, I grew up Catholic. I've never been to a funeral like this. But then I don't feel so bad anymore because I don't think anyone's ever been to a funeral like this. So on behalf of myself and my family, including my sister Laura, who is here today with us and everyone from our organization, I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the Jackson family and everyone here who knew and loved Reverend Jackson. It was a great honor of mine to get to know Reverend Jackson over the past 17 years, and he was a man I truly admired and respected. When I first met the Reverend though, I have to admit, I was a little nervous. Everything I knew about him is something that I had read in the paper or maybe seen on TV.

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And his leadership and his leadership in civil rights and human rights and everything he'd done, Operation Push, everything he had done. And I knew all about that, but I'd never met the man. But knowing Jesse Jackson, the public figure, does not fully prepare you to meet Jesse Jackson the person. In public, in pursuit of greater goals, he was bold and outspoken and defiant, but in person, he was also warm

Thomas Ricketts (02:45:00):

... And friendly. And as many of you know in this room, he had a great sense of humor and we laughed a lot. Now, I think a good man can speak to a large crowd and perhaps inspire the masses, but a great man can also speak to you like you were the only person in the world. And Jesse Jackson was that kind of man. Of course, I personally like to believe that all great people love baseball. I'm not really sure if that's true, but the Reverend did. In fact, he was a pretty good baseball player. He turned down the opportunity to play professional baseball to go to college to play football. And like many truly great people, he was a family man. He loved his family and was an especially doting grandfather. I saw this firsthand, as I know how much he loved to bring his family, his children, and his grandchildren to the ballpark.

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Tellingly, Reverend Jackson never asked to be in a suite. He always wanted to sit in the seats with the fans. Even on his last few visits, where his health challenges were mounting. All he ever asked for was a hot dog, a soda, and a Cubs win. And on most days we could deliver all three of those. And while I know the Reverend loved to come to the ballpark, because it was a place to be with his family, he also respected the history of Wrigley Field and knew that it is the only major league ballpark still standing where Jackie Robinson actually played a game. And of course, that's the same Jackie Robinson that Reverend Jackson so beautifully eulogized over 50 years ago. On that day in 1972, he compared the life of Jackie Robinson to a quote, "A rock in the water, creating concentric circles and ripples of new opportunities." It occurs to me that one could say the same about the life of Reverend Jackson. He was just one big rock in the water and he made so, so many ripples. Thank you.

Isaiah Thomas (02:47:39):

I'm used to working with a 24-second shot clock, so I will try to extend a couple of more of my minutes longer. First, I want to honor the Chicago's first royal family, the Jackson family. Mama Jackson, children, grandchildren, all that you have stood for in Chicago, the home that you made, and the place of peace and safety that you gave our leader, our Chicago Nelson Mandela. Thank you. I also like to honor the five presidents who are sitting here today. President Harris, President Clinton, President Bill Clinton, First Lady Jill Biden, President Biden, and Chicago's own South Side, President Barack Obama.

(02:49:28)
And I got to set the stage, because a lot of us in here are a little older than some of the generation below us. So I was born in 1961 on the west side of Chicago, Cook County Hospital. But for those of us who were here living during that period of time, as little young men, young women, 1961 to 1971, '63 Medgar Evers was assassinated. '65, Malcolm X was assassinated. Fred Hampton assassinated '69. Martin Luther King assassinated '68. The Kennedy brothers assassinated. We had just come out of Jim Crow. I was the first one in my family to live outside of Jim Crow.

(02:51:04)
Angela Davis was on the run. I had a free Angela Davis pin. And those of us who were sitting in this audience understood what Chicago was like. Us Chicagoans on the west side and the south side from the '60s to the '70s, when every store was burnt down, there was no place to go. There was one man, again, our Nelson Mandela at that time, stood tall. And I remember my mom and I standing in a soup line on Madison and Kenzie, one of the most humiliating times of our life. We had no food. We had moved four or five times. And this beautiful man, this legend, this hero, came walking down the street. And I, as a young boy, when society was telling me I was a nobody, when society was telling me, "We don't even want to go to school with you."

(02:52:36)
This man walked down the street and walked up to me and my mom, and my mom had marched with him before. He said hello to my mom, and then he did the unthinkable. Mama Jackson, your husband kneeled down, and he looked me in my eyes, and that man said, "You are somebody."

(02:53:02)
At that time, I couldn't quite understand the feelings and emotions that I was having as a young kid, walking, trying to find food, looking for a place to go. But when he said I am somebody, it resonated with me that there was a whole world trying to make me a nobody. And when he knelt down and looked me in my eye and said, "You are somebody." And then he said, "Say it again. Say, 'I am somebody.'"

(02:53:58)
" I am somebody. I am somebody."

(02:54:02)
I looked up, my mom is crying. She's proud, but we couldn't get out of the soup line, right, Jonathan? We lose our spot. Y'all know it. You standing in that soup line, your friends walking by cheesing you and everything, but you can't get out. Then he lifted me up emotionally on his shoulders, left. And I was like, "Mama, that's the man we see on TV."

(02:54:38)
She's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

(02:54:41)
So for us Chicagoans, right? When Muhammad Ali said, "I'm the greatest," on a national stage, that resonated to everybody.

(02:54:52)
But for the kids in Louisville, Kentucky, oh, it hit different. When Nelson Mandela said in Sueto, South Africa, "Let my people go and free them."

(02:55:05)
When he walked up and he spoke, oh, it hit different there. When Reverend Jackson said in Chicago, "I am somebody and keep hope alive."

(02:55:19)
Oh, for us, it's different. Years later, in one of my most triumphant moments, he's running for president, 1988, we trying to beat the Lakers. We trying to dethrone the Lakers. My father-in-law, Gordon Kendall, is head of Secret Service for the family. We get a call, midnight, one in the morning. "Hey, I'm coming to the game."

(02:56:02)
I said, "How you going to get to the game? You running for president. People..."

(02:56:06)
"No, I'm coming to you."

(02:56:08)
Who just said he was the most popular man in the world in 1988? Who just said that? Was that you? 1988, he's the most popular man in the world and he come into my game. He shows up at the game in my most triumphant moment. We win. He walks in and he kneels, and he says a prayer. Then he lifted me up on those big broad shoulders again and he left. Years later, my mother passed away and when my mother died, all of Chicago came out, represented, showed up, and we were at our lowest moment, and Reverend Jackson walked into the church. I remember sitting there with my brothers and sisters, and it was like this man who's been there my whole life, we didn't know what to say, what to do on that day. We had no words for my mama.

(02:57:57)
That man walked up to the stage and said, " I got this."

(02:58:07)
And he sent my mama off, beautiful words and everything else. While we were at our lowest again, he came and he lifted us up on those broad shoulders. Fast-forward, all of us will remember the day when you was elected President of the United States. And I'll never forget that day when you walked out on the stage with your family, with our First Lady Michelle, my former teammate, played bitty basketball with Craig, the pictures and the images, and those of you who were there, the tears that were in the audience, the long struggle. And if you can remember, the camera panned from our president to your husband, to your father, to your grandfather, and he stood there with tears in his eyes. And I know all of you remember this image. And those big, heavy, broad shoulders lifting you up, holding you high, saying, "I got you. I got you."

(02:59:56)
Yes, that's what Reverend Jesse L. Jackson means to us in Chicago in our royal family. So we thank you for the courage. We thank you for the faith. We thank you for believing in us and all of us who were so devastated from the '60s and the '70s coming out of Jim Crow, trying to make a way out of no way. When he would improvise in a poem, "I am somebody." When he would say, "Even if I'm on welfare."

(03:00:43)
I'm like, "He talking to me."

(03:00:44)
"Even if I'm poor."

(03:00:46)
"Oh, he talking to me."

(03:00:49)
He had a way of connecting personally with us. So today, when he said, "Keep hope alive." When there was no hope for us, and all of you here from Chicago know in the '60s, we felt like there was no hope. Hope was lost. Hope was gone. This man gave us hope, gave us life, gave us energy. And today, I want to thank all of you for showing up. And to the organizers and presenters, I would just like to say to the organizers, when you took on the challenge to bring this man home, you couldn't understand the vastness and the multitudes that he touched. So there's no way you're going to be on time. It ain't going to happen. And you know why it's not going to happen? Because all of us here, when you look around, we are from every single walk of life, rich, poor, strong. He brought it all together. The Rainbow Coalition. Thank you. Appreciate you. Mama, don't you get up, I'm coming over to tell you I love you.

Speaker 8 (03:02:41):

The man who got up two hours ago, talking about a 24-second shot clock, just said that he don't honor time. What Jackson family... Jackson family, your heart has to be beating, just beaming to know how much we all love the reverend. It's got to be. It's got to be. And I'm with that thing. Y'all will always be our royal family, our first family, because y'all are the Jacksons, y'all royalty. Well, I get the opportunity to introduce my seatmate from the Senate, who came on to be the 44th President of the United States. Chicago, ladies and gentlemen, President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama (03:04:28):

It's good to be home. I love you back. The book of Isaiah. Where he at? Now see, I believe in the Constitution. The Book of Isaiah, God is looking for a messenger to guide a hardened and resistant people. And the Lord asks, " Whom shall I send and who will go with us?"

(03:05:41)
To which Isaiah replies, "Here I am, Lord, send me."

(03:05:54)
To Mother Jackson and the Jackson family, to President and Mrs. Biden, President and Secretary Clinton, Vice President Harris, Pastor Dates, my old friend, though he looking good, Reverend Meeks, Reverend Jenkins, it is an honor to join you today to celebrate the Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson, a man who, when the poor and the dispossessed, needed a champion and a country needed healing, stepped forward again and again and again and said, "Send me." Reverend Jackson's immense gifts were apparent at an early age, even if his circumstances conspired to try to hold him back. Born out of wedlock to a teenage mom, growing up under the oppressive cloud of segregation, confined to schools, sports facilities, movie theaters that were separate and unequal. It was a world where on Thanksgiving, he'd have to wait for his mother to come home on the bus carrying leftovers from the dinner she had to cook for somebody else, a world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far, that to think otherwise would be foolish or dangerous and that wisdom required you to accept your lot in life.

(03:08:15)
And young Jesse refused to accept that verdict. He was a born leader, an athlete, a talker, knew how to talk, star quarterback, student body president. He could have succeeded within the confines that were determined for him and had a successful life. But like so many of his generation, so many extraordinary civil rights leaders in the late '50s and '60s, that Joshua generation, he instinctively understood that individual success meant nothing unless everybody was free. So he became inspired by the bus boycotts in Montgomery. He led seven Black students into the whites only library, sitting down and getting arrested for reading. Think about that.

(03:09:44)
The library closed, but then it reopened, and when it did, it was open to everyone. "Send me," Jesse said, even as a young man and the world got a little bit better.

(03:10:08)
By the time Reverend Jackson graduated from college, he attended Chicago Theological Seminary. He knew the nature of his calling, and he became, as everybody knows, the youngest member of SELC, assigned the lead Operation Bread Basket here in Chicago, right around the time that Isaiah Thomas was talking about. And it was during this period, and especially after Dr. King's death, when the optimism of the early movement had begun to fade, and leadership had begun to fracture, and when the country seemed to have grown bored, gotten weary of the idea of justice, and equality, and moved on to other concerns, that Reverend Jackson rose above despair and kept that righteous flame alight.

(03:11:19)
Through Operation Push, he let boycotts and challenged corporate policies around hiring and contracting, recognizing that civil rights without economic justice was an empty promise. He backed unions in their organizing efforts and activists in fair wage campaigns, understanding that if the have-nots and the have-little-bits ever learned to make common cause across racial lines, instead of fighting each other over breadcrumbs, everybody would benefit. He helped register millions of voters. He fought against biases in the criminal justice system. He drew attention to local abuses of power and called folks at the national level to account. And by the early '80s, he was delivering that message of change and hope across the globe, freeing hostages from captivity, fighting to end apartheid in South Africa.

(03:12:45)
And then in 1984, as the powers that be in Washington were rolling back hard-won progress, slashing the social safety net, when more and more folks were getting left behind and greed was being trumpeted as a virtue, see, we've been there before. He stepped forward once again and said, "Send me."

(03:13:25)
He ran for the presidency of the United States of America. I had just graduated from college during that first campaign, and I was living in New York at the time. I was working to pay off my student loans, eating a lot of tuna fish and Campbell soup. And if I went to a diner, I'd grab some extra crackers, put them on pocket. And I was inspired by the civil rights movement, and I had my mind to work for social justice, but even though I was full of good intentions, I was uncertain of how to serve and fighting off self-doubt. And I remember how, at the time, plenty of people, including, I'm sorry, plenty of Black folks were dismissing Jesse's chances, suggesting he just wants attention, he can only get Black votes. But then I remember one night sitting in my janky apartment and I got an old black and white TV with the rabbit ears, and I'm kind of jiggering around and it's about this big. I know young people can't imagine, but TV was about this big.

(03:15:16)
And I'm watching the democratic primary debate between him and Walter Mondale and Gary Hart. And I remember how when that debate was over, I turned off that TV and I thought the same thing that I know a lot of people thought that night, even if they didn't want to admit it, that in his ideas, in his platform, in his analysis, in his intelligence, in his insight, Jesse hadn't just held his own. He had owned that stage. He wasn't an intruder. He wasn't a pretender. He belonged on that stage. And the message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that maybe there wasn't any place, any room where we didn't belong.

(03:16:43)
And that message, the fairness and dignity of justice and hope, that's what the Rainbow Coalition was all about. In 1984 and then again in 1988, Jesse didn't just speak to Black folks. He spoke to white folks and Latinos, and Asian Americans, and the first Americans. He spoke to family farmers and environmentalists. He spoke to gay rights activists when nobody was talking to gay rights activists, and blue collar workers, and he gave them the same message that they mattered, that their voices and their votes counted. He invited them to believe. He invited us to believe in our own power to change America for the better. By the delegate count, Jesse's two candidacies ultimately came up short, but he paved the road

President Barack Obama (03:18:01):

... For so many others to follow. Douglas Wilder became the first elected black governor. Carol Moseley Braun went to the US Senate. Because of Jesse, the Democratic Party changed its rules, ending the winner take all distribution of delegates during presidential primaries, which meant underdogs and outsiders like Bill Clinton or Bernie Sanders could stay competitive and build momentum instead of getting knocked out early. And it was because of that path that he had laid because of his courage, his audacity, that two decades later, a young black senator from Chicago South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination.

(03:18:58)
I still credit that first round of justice and Harold Washington's campaign for drawing me to Chicago. And I didn't know anybody when I first arrived. And I was working as a community organizer as it so happens in neighborhoods right around here. Rosalind Woodlawn, Al Gil, Wes Pullman. And I'm meeting these young preachers like Meeks and some crazy priest named Pfleger. And I guess Jenkins was running around, but he's kind of young. He came a little bit later. So I'm going to churches and I'm listening to all these amazing preachers and it was hard work. And half the time I didn't know what I was doing and progress was slow.

(03:20:35)
And I definitely didn't know how I was going to survive the Chicago weathers because I grew up in Hawaii. But I do remember heading to the PUSH headquarters some Saturday mornings to listen and learn from Reverend Jackson. And y'all remember how on some mornings if there was a major issue going on, the room would be packed to the rafters. And sometimes some celebrity just wanders in. And then some mornings it was kind of low-key. Either way though, the announcements would be made and [inaudible 03:21:23], say a prayer and just he'd sit there and then finally he'd gather himself up and stand and he'd start slow.

(03:21:34)
And sometimes he'd talk low so he couldn't quite catch what he was saying. So everybody lean in. And over time, it was that same boundless energy that would emerge and that same passion and that same insight. And he'd offer you a masterclass in economics on a Saturday morning. And he'd give you a seminar in American history and American politics and he'd make complicated things plain and he'd tell stories that would make you laugh one minute and cry the next. And whether you were a bus driver or a teacher or a business leader or a young organizer, you came away from those meetings with a better understanding of how the world worked, how power worked. And more importantly, he made you believe that if we came together, we could make the world work better.

(03:22:49)
Now, we've been talking about Jesse telling us we are somebody. I am somebody. And he wasn't just talking to young black boys like Isaiah, though he loved them fiercely. He wasn't just talking to young black girls to help them believe, though he believed in them. He was talking about everyone who was left out, everyone who was forgotten, everyone who was unseen, everyone who was unheard. And in that sense, he was expressing the very essence of what our democracy should be. The ideals at the very heart of the American experiment, the belief that regardless of what we look like or how we worship, regardless of where our ancestors come from or how much money we got, we're all part of the American family. We're all endowed with the same inalienable rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We're all obligated to answer the call and step forward and take responsibility for making wrongs right and for caring for our neighbors and bringing the reality of America a step closer to its glorious ideals.

(03:24:29)
And answering that call isn't always easy. And Reverend Jackson and his family knew that better than most. To do what he did, he would endure all kinds of hatred and setbacks and betrayals and doubters and death threats. He would sacrifice, as Jim Reynolds pointed out, the leisure and comfort of what was available to him as a far more financially secure life. And those sacrifices were not his alone. They were shared by his wife and his children. And they bore that burden with grace and strength. I got to know the Reverend and his family over the years, and as I watched his children follow his example of service, I came to appreciate the conviction that drove him, that he had passed on, the faith that guided him and that he had passed on. And it was a faith that didn't waiver, the flame that burned bright, even as his body began to fail.

(03:25:51)
The last time he and I had a chance to visit in person, he was already ailing. It was getting difficult for him to stand, difficult for him to speak. We were in Hyde Park in a hotel room, embraced him and figured we'd just have a low-key visit, maybe he'd need some rest. And he starts coming up with this project and this initiative and issues I needed to look into. And here's some commentary that he would suggest and some phrasing that he thought might work and maybe we might co-write an article and...

(03:26:41)
And listening to him, I couldn't help smile because it took me back. And I started reminiscing with him about those Saturday mornings at PUSH and the breakfast that he'd host away from the full meeting. And I didn't get a chance to go to that until I was a state Senator and probably Meeks invited me. So I was like... I was tagging along with Meeks and he'd pull out a piece of paper, he'd scribbled some stuff and he'd start passing out assignments and pulling together working groups and asking for updates on the latest campaign. And I'll admit, let's face it, those sessions could run a little long and did not always follow Robert's rules of order.

(03:27:48)
But when Jesse called your name and acknowledged you in that room, especially if you were young, especially if you were just coming up, especially if you weren't sure you could pull off what you thought you might be able to do, especially when you needed help. When he did that, you stood up a little straighter. You knew you'd been seen by this giant. He'd laid hands on you and let you know you had a contribution to make. And so that day, I told him how much that meant to me and how much it meant to so many lives that he impacted. And I told him thank you, because I'd always be grateful for that legacy of hope.

(03:28:54)
I know I've gone long. It was going to be much shorter until Isaiah spoke. I figure if a Detroit Piston can take up this much time, it was beautiful, and I mean that. Love me some Isaiah. We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to things you just didn't think were possible. Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don't even count at all.

(03:30:25)
Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength, we see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards every single day we see that and it's hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged, to give into cynicism. It may be tempting for some to compromise with power and grab what you can, or even for good people to maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass. But this man, Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson inspires us to take a harder path.

(03:31:33)
His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, send me, wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it's in our school, or our workplaces, or our neighborhoods, or our cities, not for fame, not for glory, or because success is guaranteed, but because it gives our life purpose. Because it aligns with what our faith tells us God demands. And because if we don't step up, no one else will. How fortunate we were that Jesse Jackson answered that call. What a great debt we owe to him. May God bless Reverend Jackson. May he rest in eternal peace. God bless you.

Speaker 9 (03:32:33):

President Barack Obama. Well, well, we might as well stay in Chicago. We in Chicago and we had the president from Chicago. We might as well move to the songbird from Chicago. Ladies and gentlemen, Jennifer Hudson.

MUSIC (03:33:45):

There's an old friend.

(03:33:45)
I once heard say.

(03:33:45)
Something that touched my heart.

(03:33:45)
And it began this way.

(03:33:45)
I was born by the river.

(03:33:45)
In a little tent.

(03:33:45)
And just like the river.

(03:33:45)
I've been runnin' ever since.

(03:33:45)
It's been a long, long, long, a long time comin'.

(03:33:45)
But I know my change is gonna come. Listen.

(03:33:45)
Well, I go to my brother.

(03:33:45)
And I say brother, brother, help me, please.

(03:33:45)
Oh, oh, but when I go to my dear brother.

(03:33:45)
[inaudible 03:35:12], knocking me back down.

(03:33:45)
Holding my knees. There've been times when I thought.

(03:33:45)
I wouldn't last for long.

(03:33:45)
But somehow, [inaudible 03:35:46] to carry on.

(03:33:45)
It's been a long, long, long, long, a long time comin'.

(03:33:45)
But change, change is going to come. Listen.

(03:33:45)
See there, there's been times when I thought.

(03:33:45)
I wouldn't last for long.

(03:33:45)
But right now I'm [inaudible 03:36:27] to carry on.

(03:33:45)
It's been a long, long, a long time comin'.

(03:33:45)
But I know a change, a change's going to come.

(03:33:45)
Lord, yes, it will.

(03:33:45)
God bless you. [inaudible 03:35:44].

(03:33:45)
We love you.

Speaker 9 (03:37:24):

Come on one more time, everybody. For the EGOT, Jennifer Hudson. Ladies and gentlemen, the 46th President of the United States, please welcome President Joseph Biden.

President Joseph Biden (03:37:39):

Thank you. I think that clock is broken. I'll try to keep this under two minutes. The Jackson family, I know we're celebrating a life, once the life lost. Having lost a wife and a daughter and a son, it's cold out of the blue eye. It's not easy. No matter how much you loved him, no matter how close you were. So I just like to express my deep sense of, how can I say it? Simply an understanding. But the big thing is [inaudible 03:38:43] left. He left you something that no one else could. He left you character, judgment, honesty. You can't kid yourselves about what's right and wrong. President Obama, President Mrs. Clinton, Vice President Harris. Jesse believed the Bible tells us that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

(03:39:19)
They shall mount up with wings and eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint. I hope the hell you all got that, because you're going to need the help of getting out of here. I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania initially, where the fact that I was an Irish Catholic wasn't a very positive thing to be. And then moved down to Wilmington, Delaware, which was segregated by law and remained that way for much of my life. And it's interesting that Jesse Jackson, before we knew Jesse Jackson, I was raised with a notion that hope is all you really have. You can't give up hope. My dad used to say, "When you get knocked down, Joey, just get up. Just get up." Well, as a kid, I was a relatively good athlete and a pretty good student, but I stuttered to talk like that.

(03:40:45)
Now, if I told you all earlier when I was a kid, I had a cleft palate or clubfoot, none of you would have laughed, but it's okay to laugh at stuttering. I'm not being critical of you, but think about it. It's the one place where people think you're stupid. Oh, really? I'm a hell of a lot smarter than most of you, but all kidding aside. It makes you feel really small. It makes you feel really small. And you know, when I moved from Wilmington to Claymont, Delaware, work class town, I was surprised. I remember being dropped off at the little Catholic school I went to, third grade, and I watched his bus go by every day. And it passed... [inaudible 03:41:37] of Philadelphia Pike connecting Wilmington and Philadelphia. And it passed the turn to the big high school, Claymont High School, and the little Catholic school I went to, Holy Rosary was right on the corner.

(03:41:50)
I remember saying to my mom, "Mom, why does that happen?" She said, "Well, black kids aren't allowed to go to school with white kids in Delaware." And the more I thought about that, I thought to myself, "How can that work? How can that be right?" And so as [inaudible 03:42:13] as it sounds, I got involved in being concerned about it. I didn't know damn a thing about the civil rights movement. I was going into fourth grade, but you know what's right and you know what's wrong and you feel it.

(03:42:26)
The fact of the matter is a man of God and then the people throughout the decade of friendship and partnership, I knew Jesse. We're both young. I'm only 83. [inaudible 03:42:46] you laughing. I said 40 times, two plus. Put all kidding aside, we came up through the same time. I knew Jesse and history remembers him. I knew him as determined and tenacious. I knew him was underrated, undeterred, and unafraid. Not a joke. And more than most, Jesse was dedicated with every fiber in his being to redeeming the soul of America, the soul of America. Jesse came up, and I came up together as leaders in the Democratic Party. We had very different backgrounds, and some cases even different views, but never on race. Sometimes we went out of toe to toe, we disagreed on some issues, but that's what I actually admired most about Jesse, his passion.

(03:43:51)
He was passionate, his passion. The courage of his convictions, and his courage inspired a hell of a lot of us, even though we were the same age. You know, with his captivating presence, his stirring words, he would... Be easy for history to mistake Jesse for a firebrand, but I think they'd get it wrong. Jesse certainly created his fair share of good trouble, but through decades of service, Jesse's abiding message was one of unity. That's what he talked about. Through decades of service, Jesse's abiding message of unity moved people in the right direction. Above all, he always sought common ground. I remember telling Jesse that I knew a guy in South Africa that I was going to go see. His name was Nelson Mandela. And Jesse saying, "How are you going to guys actually see him?" By the way, you know, the continent of Africa is going to be the largest continent in the world in terms of population by the year 2050, in the entire world.

(03:45:21)
Watch, man, watch. And the fact of the matter was that I remember there were a group of senators going down to... I got elected when I was 29. I wasn't old enough to be sworn in, for real. Some people wasn't bright enough to be sworn in. But the point was, I had to wait 17 days before I could be eligible to be sworn in as the United States Senator. One of the benefits I had was I wasn't going to leave the Senate. I wasn't going to be sworn in because I got a phone call on December 18th before we were just sworn in January that my wife and daughter had just been killed and my two boys were going to die. So I decided what I was going to... There was an accident, there was a Christmas shop, a tractor trailer hit.

(03:46:12)
So I decided I wasn't going to go to the Senate. And [inaudible 03:46:16] pointed out to me, I said, "My kids can... The state of Delaware can always get another Senator or a Democratic governor, but my kids can't get another father." But because of a couple people start with Teddy Kennedy and a guy named Fritz Hollings from South Carolina where Jesse's from, and a few others, Hubert Humphrey and others, they put their arm around me and they said, "Look, just stay, just stay for 10 months and then go." Because they knew I was going to be leaving as [inaudible 03:46:58], and all three of them could tell you, is that when you're a freshman, you don't get on the good committees. Committees everybody wants to get on are appropriations, finance, judiciary, and foreign relations.

(03:47:15)
So they keep me down there, they put me on two really important committees, the judiciary committee, which allowed me to appoint the first black Justice of Supreme Court and the Foreign Relations Committee. The real benefit of that was I've been around so long, I literally, and I don't want... I'm not being critically of my colleagues, I know more heads of state personally than any other president in history of the United States of America, which means I know a lot about other countries. I spent a lot of time. Here's the point, the fact is that as I learned, and by the way, I've forgotten more about what Putin does and these guys and Xi than most people know. I've met with Putin for... Anyway.

(03:48:15)
And remember, Barack was a great, great man to be vice president for. I rarely mean it, Barack. Thank you. Barack and I had a deal with... We'd talk with each other the first... Every morning we'd be the first two people we talked to. And every night we were the last two people we talked to. And Barack would be asking me a question or something, I'd say, "Well, it's all personal relations." He'd go, "I know, I know Joe. I know about all personal relations." But the fact of the matter is, that's why you're such a damn good president.

(03:48:56)
And the whole point of what I'm trying to get at here is that Jesse did it really well. You got to know people. You got to understand what's on their mind. You got to speak to them. You got to be able to talk to them. And above all, Jesse always sought common ground. Of course, he preached hope because folks, despite all he endured growing up, despite the pain and disappointment he experienced, Jesse was an optimist at his core. No matter what you say, at his core, he was an optimist. I don't know if he was born [inaudible 03:49:45] religious leader or was born out... How it would arrive, but it arrived in people in different ways. But it mattered a lot. It mattered a lot. He kept the faith with the American people. Every time I moved from Scranton, we'd go up here and spend the summers up there.

(03:50:07)
Every time I leave my grandpa Ambrose Finnegan's home, he was an all American football player at Santa Clara when Irish Catholics learned very much in Vogue, I [inaudible 03:50:16] in the minds up there. As Hillary knows that state well. Every time I leave the house, he yelled, "Joey, keep the faith." And my grandmother will be like, "No, Joey, spread it." Well, folks, I had the opportunity to come up in politics at a time with people like Jesse were around and Jesse in particular, where he talked about hope. He talked about hope. He believed in his bones in the promise of America. We're all created equal in the image of God, and we hear us all the time. I wonder how many people really believe it. He believed everybody deserved to be treated with equally

President Joseph Biden (03:51:00):

... throughout their lives. And while we've never fully lived with a promise, I don't think things would have been the same had Jesse not been around because Jesse decided that his life was ensuring that we never fully walk away from it either because there's bad times like now. We're in a tough spot, folks. We've got an administration that doesn't share any of the values that we have. And I don't think I'm exaggerating a little bit. He knew who we were at our best and he simply refused to let us off the hook as a party, as a nation, or as individuals. And time and again, for triumph and turmoil with relentless insistence on what is right and just he helped lead us closer to fulfilling our nation's promise of restoring the nation's soul. He used his gifts to influence generations of Americans, and countless elected officials, including presidents, as you see here today.

(03:52:16)
And though through his impassioned words on the campaign trail and through moments of quiet courage, Jesse changed history in ways numerous and profound. In fact, I want to thank the Jackson family again because you don't do it without family. My dad used to have an expression, he said, "Family is the beginning, the middle and the end. It's all family." And Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the family, you're just incredible. But I promise you, as much as we're celebrating here, when you leave here, you're still going to go home and you're going to feel a little hole in your heart. He's gone. But only I can tell you from experience of losing so many people in my family, the day will come when his memory brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will come.

(03:53:22)
And my prayer for you is it will be sooner than later. Look, if the legion of Americans and I know there are many who counted Jesse as a mentor, a friend, a hero, let us be what Jesse called us to be. A margin of hope. Sometimes just a margin. You change people's lives and change the communities lives. Lift up this country and light the path to be a nation Jesse always believed we could be.

(03:54:05)
Three years ago this week, Jesse and I came together once again on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, to walk across that bridge. When you stand there, you're coming from a state like Delaware, you understand what's on the other side when they're waiting there. Thugs on horses waiting to beat the living hell out of you. Well, let me tell you something. We reenacted that a number of times. This time, Jesse's in a wheelchair, but he's not deterred. His faith renewed his strength. And with faith, he didn't grow weary and he didn't let us grow weary. No, he really didn't. I know that sounds strange, but he didn't.

(03:54:54)
I reflected on Jesse's strength and his spirit. Let me close with sharing a hymn that means a lot to the Biden family. It particularly meant a lot to my son, Beau. Beau was a wonderful guy. He should be standing here, not me. Beau was the Attorney General of the State of Delaware, a really decent guy, loved by everyone in the community, volunteered to go to Iraq rather than go to Iraq when it was all National Guard. And he died there because he was exposed to those burn pits. Well, this quote meant a lot.

(03:55:46)
"And He will raise you up on eagles' wings. Bear you on the breath of dawn. Let this light shine upon you like the sun until the next time he sees you holds you in the palm of His hand." My prayer for everyone here, and I'm cutting my speech very short because I'm afraid I'm getting attacked. Folks, I guess I could say it all in one paragraph. Don't give up. I started off every morning as a young man, when I got back to Delaware, every morning, because I got involved in my community, I quit my job with one of the biggest law firms in Delaware, became a public defender. And I spent a lot of time with the community. I was the only white guy that worked on the east side of Wilmington, Delaware. As a matter of fact, they named the biggest swim pool after me, the Biden swimming pool, man. But all kidding aside, I was one of only 13 lifeguards. I was the only white guy because I wanted to understand. I thought I knew the issues, but I didn't understand the individual persons.

(03:57:25)
I remember I had a little Chevette. I remember an All-State halfback guy I played with. And he said, "Joe, you have a jerrycan, a big five gallon." He said, "Can I borrow your car?" I said, "You've got a car. Sure you borrowed. What do you need a jerrycan for?" He said, "You dumb SOB. I'm going down to see my mother in North Carolina. I can't stop at a gas station." The point I'm making is, the more we know one another, the more we understand what we're going through, there's enough decency and human nature in this country to reach out to help. Jesse kept hope alive for us in his lifetime, and we've got to continue to do it in our lifetime for our children because there's nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So stand up and finish his job.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (03:58:48):

Come on, let's thank President Biden again, everybody. As we continue with the expressions, we welcome the one and only Reverend Al Sharpton, after which Dr. Jim Zogby will come. Please welcome them.

President Barack Obama (03:59:13):

Thank you. I've heard all through our service, first, giving honor and regard to the Jackson family and to the matriarch of liberation, Mrs. Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson. As I listened and thought about, everyone quoted the slogan of Reverend Jackson, but I want to, in my few minutes, and if you take Brother Biden's minutes and other minutes, I come out of the Jackson school of thought. They told me four minutes, which means eight in Jacksonian language. I don't want us, yourself, to leave here having mourned and then mock what Jackson was all about. We're sitting here acting like our own lack of rising to what he wanted us to be is the reason we are sitting on the brink of some of the most serious Reconstruction behavior being rescinded that we've seen in modern times.

(04:00:56)
To leave here and not file an assignment would not be what Jesse Jackson taught us. To make us feel good, we went to Jesse Jackson's funeral and that we said nice things about Mrs. Jackson, but people at the same time are killing illegal immigrants. People at the same time are cutting public funding. At the same time the Affordable Care Act is not being renewed and seniors have to deal with premiums. Don't sit here so holy and sanctify and act like you have no assignment yourself. Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson did theirs. Do you realize they were born here in South Carolina, her in Florida when it was against the law, I'm not talking about a custom, against the law to ride in Southern buses, against the law to use a toilet downtown, against the law for you to eat in certain restaurants. And these two Southern born, raised in Southern American apartheid, went on and put two of their sons in Congress, broke down barriers of voting. They did theirs. They planted a platform that led to an empowerment, and we are the generations behind them that have returned to those that were against us being empowered. Oh, they went against the Southern bigots in the overalls. We're dealing with manicured Fifth Avenue bigots.

(04:02:55)
I remember I was 12 years old. I was a boy preacher in the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Shia knew my Bishop, Bishop Washington. Bishop Washington, my mother was concerned I was getting into politics. They brought us to Reverend William Jones. His daughter's traveling with us. And Reverend Jones introduced me to Jesse Jackson. I became his youth director in New York at 13. I liked Reverend Jackson because he was a little hipper than the young older preachers. He was 27. I was 13 by the time I became youth director. So he was like a father figure to me. When I got about 40, he said, "Quit calling me father, call me big brother." But what I liked about it is that he didn't have the background others had. He didn't come from generations of preachers. So those of us that didn't have that pedigree, didn't have that background, could relate.

(04:04:03)
And he talked about economics and he talked about discipline. He would not let us make excuses. I would call him and say, "We're doing certain things and they're attacking us in the press." He's, "Oh, another pity party." He never cared when we felt we were being unfairly attacked. But I never will forget, 1994. We went to Dekar, Senegal and James Meeks and Jesse Jr. and I had dinner with him that night. And that's where he said, "Al, Meeks, Jesse Jr., y'all are my disciples." And we said, "Disciples?" And for years we joked each other. I covered a room and Junior said, "Here's disciple number one." But discipleship meant you carried forth the vision.

(04:05:09)
The next day, he took me on the ferry to Gorée Island, Mrs. Jackson. And on Gorée Island, he showed me where the slave camps were. And I will never forget, he said, "Al, you see what that artifact is?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "They call it the door of no return. When you go through that door, you either made it to America to slavery or you died in the Atlantic, the door of no return." But I talked to him about three years ago, and I reminded him, I said, "Remember when you brought me to the door of no return?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "But we did return." We returned the President of the United States, Barack Obama. We returned to Vice President Kamala Harris. We returned with businessmen. They thought they sent us as slaves. We came back as global liberators. The problem is that too many of us did not join the movements that sponsored us. And there was a breakout in 2024 called Negro amnesia, where you forgot where you came from and forgot how you got where you got. Therefore, they're trying to take back everything you have.

(04:06:33)
I asked Michael Eric Dyson, our prominent scholar, "Where in history is this?" He said, "We always go one step forward and two back." Well, here we are now. The problem is not Trump. The problem is us. We are allowing ourselves to be lowered and our children to feel inferior because you don't have an, "I am somebody," person. You've got our artists calling our women Bs. Our others calling us Niggers. What happened to us? What happened to Black and Proud? What happened, "I'm going to vote." What happened ain't going to let nobody turn me around. What happened to us?

(04:07:25)
We believed our way and we had the faith to do it. And that's why my challenge to you is that we should do what Jesse Jackson did. Not look at what you can see, but look at what you can believe, even if you can't see it. Sitting here talking about, "Oh, they got all the power, we can't win." We've got to win. Because they put the seeds of victory in us. If we just nurture them and grow, Hakeem Jeffries be the Speaker of the House. If we keep on winning, we'll get the Senate back. If we keep winning, we can save healthcare for our grandmamas. If we keep winning, we can bring about criminal justice reform. If we keep winning, we can have two Jackson boys in the Congress. We didn't come this far to turn around now.

(04:08:51)
Reverend Sharp, Pastor Fellowship, I was talking to him. And I was saying Reverend Sharp, Jesse Jackson talked about "Keep Hope alive." And I met a man that Reverend Jackson admired called Adam Clayton Powell when I was a kid. And Adam had a slogan called, "Keep the faith, baby." And I'd like, Tyler Perry is here. He canceled something to be with us. I like one day Tyler do a whole thing on it. Adam Powell, because there's a little risque side to Adam, that Tyler know how to handle that kind of stuff.

(04:09:53)
And between Jesse Jackson's slogan of, "Keep hope," and Adam's slogan of, "Keep faith," is what I challenge us and the Jackson family to do because my mother told me in my engine, I had two gears, hope and fear. Hope is that I hope a better day will come. Hope is I won't give up. Hope is that we've come this far by faith. But she said, "But sometimes it's going to get dreary." And that's when your gear goes to faith. Faith is the substance of things. You hope for, not hope for the evidence of things not seen. Faith is when the doctors give up, but you hold on for another doctor. Faith is when you've got bills to pay and no money to pay them. Faith is when they write you off and when they write you back. We come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord.

(04:11:02)
Oh, they're getting ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country, but we were not free in 1776. It is not our celebration. We got here in 1619. We worked 246 years and never got paid, but we are still here. We've come this far by faith. It was against the law to read and write. It was against the law to marry, but we come this far by faith. I don't care what they do in Washington. I care what we do in the community. We beat people bigger than Trump. We fought people harder than them if we stand up and be what we're supposed to be.

(04:11:56)
The private sector saying they're going to end diversity, equity, and inclusion. Reverend Sharp, we started Wall Street. Wall Street.

Dr. James Zogby (04:12:14):

We did that.

President Barack Obama (04:12:14):

Dealing with diversity. So you don't want a diversity in your boardroom, then don't have a diversified consumer base. What I'm urging you to do is leave here with some Jackson fire in you. Not just a program book, but to say, "I see the things the way they are, but I'm going to turn and change them." Have some Jackie Jackson fire saying, "I'm going to raise my kids beyond your expectation. I'm going to rise up anyhow." "But Reverend it looks bad now. Look at Iran. Look at what's going on in Minnesota. Look on." Yeah, but I was raised by them to realize that after storms, if we do the right thing in the storm, if we organize, if we register, if we do what we're supposed to do, there's always a rainbow coming out. The rainbow don't show until the storm is over.

(04:13:21)
The rainbow is going to come out in November. The rainbow going to come out in '28. We're going to fix these tricks in '26 and march through the gates in '28. We didn't come this far to turn around now. We won't go back! We won't go back! We won't go back!

Dr. James Zogby (04:14:11):

At best I can say this is a tough act to follow. I feel like Liz Taylor's sixth husband, he knew what to do, but he wasn't sure how to make it interesting. I have a challenge right now, and I ask you to bear with me because I'm not a preacher, but I have been thinking about and feeling deep feelings about Reverend Jackson for the last several days because I've been with him, working with him for almost five decades. I actually started with his campaign in 1983 when he came up to me at a dinner, hands on my shoulders behind me and he said, " I need you to come work with me. I'm going to run for president." And I said, "But Reverend, I've been organizing my community for the last four years. I can't give that up." And he said, "We'll do more for your community in the next four months than you've been able to do in the last four years." It was like a calling in the biblical sense. And it mattered.

(04:15:20)
And thank God my wife and I talked about it and were convinced it was the right thing to do and I did it because you have to understand the experience of my community before then was that no one in the Democratic Party would even meet with us. They would not have a meeting with us. And candidates were given money back and candidates rejected our endorsements. And if they found an Arab American on their staff, some people would say, "Get them off." And they'd fire them. And in 1983, the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington, I was thrilled to be asked to be on the National Steering Committee of the March. Some groups said, "If you let the Arabs march, we're not marching." And we were asked to leave, but Reverend Jackson fought to keep us on. I never forgot that.

(04:16:05)
And so when I did join the campaign in 1983, some groups came and met with Reverend Jackson and said, "You've got to get rid of Zogby." It's in Abby's new book. And he stood by me. I was quite disturbed and I said, "I don't want to be the target. I'm going to quit. Reverend, I just don't think you need the aggravation. I certainly don't need it in my life." I'll never forget what he said. He said, "Do not quit because you give them what they want. What they're most afraid of is that you stick around and fight." And so I did.

(04:16:45)
And I'm so proud that I did because to see him go around the country and meet with Arab Americans who had been the despised and the rejected, and the excitement on their face that somebody came and talked to them, that somebody was saying Arab American, that somebody was talking about Palestinians, that somebody was talking about the suffering of the Lebanese, that somebody cared to come to them was so important. It energized. He energized an entire... When he said, our time has come, it was our time too. And he meant it for us. And I'll never forget him for that because he made a difference for me, for my family, and for people across the Middle East.

(04:17:27)
He was a unique character. He was as comfortable walking the streets of Cairo or Jerusalem or Hebron as he was in Chicago. It was really quite stunning to see the reaction that he got from people wherever he went. There was a power that he had. And I've thought a lot about that power. Where did it come from? Yes, Jackie, it came from you. And I know that because I saw what you did to buck him up sometimes when he needed it, but the power came from someplace else. It came from, I think, two places that I'd point to.

(04:18:07)
One of them is that he carried the weight of generations on his shoulders, as Isaiah said. He felt the pain of his own personal history and of the history of his people. And when he walked down the street, when he spoke, people knew that that power was there. There was something in the total quality of his voice that said, "This is important. What he's saying speaks to me."

(04:18:37)
There was something else I think that was important in his worldview. And that was he was part of a generation that didn't just see America as the arena of his activity. He was a global individual. When he went to Africa, when he went to the Arab world, when he went to Asia or the Americas, he felt part of that world. He was part of almost the national liberation consciousness that existed. He did not go into the nationalist direction, but he fused together being American with being a person in the world.

(04:19:11)
And so watching him meet with Saudis or Kuwaitis or meet with Palestinians and occupied Hebron or in Jerusalem, we went in 1994, President Clinton, after the Oslo Accords, he went to Jerusalem because Palestinians had invited him to a peace conference. He wanted to encourage them to keep peace. The Israelis surrounded the hotel with troops and Rabin said, "You cannot leave the hotel and you cannot go to Orient House. You cannot do a political meeting with Palestinians in the city." You know what Jesse did? He said, "We're marching through the troops." And he walked right through the lines. I was scared stiff. I mean, I said, "Oh my God, this is crazy. I know you do it in the South and get away with it. You don't do this in Jerusalem." But you know what happened? The young Israeli soldiers, they wanted their pictures taken with him. They wanted to touch him. They wanted to be near him. And the Israeli commanders were, "Get away from him." They couldn't stop their soldiers from wanting to be next to the power of Jesse Jackson. And the Palestinian reaction was amazing.

(04:20:20)
I have to tell you one thing, just a final thing here. He freed Robert Goodman, but guess what? I have the distinction on my resume of being the person to tell him not to go. He asked me to do the research and I said, "Assad is not going to meet with you and you're not going to get Goodman." And I thought, "I did my job." He went. And he went because he knew that if he got into Syria, there's no way they would not meet with him. And if he got to sit with Assad, there was no way that he would not bring Goodman back because that was the power that he had. And it worked.

(04:21:03)
And so I am here to celebrate the fact that his fight for inclusion included us. And here to celebrate the power of the man that he used for others because that's the difference. When you use your power, if your power is money, if your power is armies, if your power is like some people it's transactional, then it's one thing. But if your power is for others, you have the ability to make change. Your power grows actually because people know you are with them and for them and of them. And that's who this man was.

(04:21:42)
I thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you all you guys for all you've done. And I so appreciate the fact that I've been a part of your family now for all this time. One final though, and at 80 years old, you know it loses. I lose it and I don't know what the thought is anymore. I'm going out on a whimper here because I can't remember what I was going to say, but I think it was important, but I'll remember it after I leave the stage. Listen, thank you all very much.

Dr. Charles Jenkins (04:22:20):

So many of us have so much to say, and we're so filled and so full that we overflow because Reverend Jackson poured so much into all of us. We're looking forward to hearing from the family, but at this moment, please welcome the 42nd President of the United States of America, President William Jefferson Clinton.

President Clinton (04:22:41):

Whoa. I'm actually going to be pretty close on time. I think we should not forget, and Jim Zogby didn't. He did a fine job, but this is a celebration and a memorial service. And you have to ask yourself, " What did Jesse Jackson do that I admire most, that moved me most? And what can I do right now that would maybe be as good as what he did then?" That's what we're all facing here.

President Clinton (04:24:02):

I love Jackie and her family. Santita sang at my second inauguration. The boys have got to go to Congress and Yusef, when the first time I met Yusef, I thought I could do whatever I wanted if he worked for me, he'd just take care of things and you're good at it. It's been an honor to know all of you, but I want to say something highly personal tonight. I came to truly love Jesse Jackson and we had more in common than he thought. We were both two guys who were born to single mothers, living in the South. And so I got to watch this guy and, frankly, the first time we met was at the 20th anniversary of the celebration of the integration of Little Rock Central High School. And some young people may not even know why that's important, but in the 1920s, that school was voted the most beautiful high school in America. Then the whole time I was governor of Arkansas, that one school accounted for 25% of our merit scholars. You could go there and study Latin and Greek, which was a pretty big deal out in the country in addition to all the science and math.

(04:26:04)
So they were celebrating the 20th anniversary and Jesse showed up to help them. But he was always asking himself, "What can we use the observation of a past victory for to get something done today?" So by the late '70s, all these medium sized and little towns in the middle of the country were being flooded with drugs. All these folks were facing more vigorous law enforcement on the coast, but they were coming in. And I kept thinking, "I know Jesse Jackson's going to know this, and he's going to say something, and I just want to be there." And I was a 29 year old attorney general.

(04:27:10)
And Hillary, a Chicago girl, she was practicing law and supporting us because the salary was almost non-existent. So Jesse gets up in front of this crowd of kids and their eyes were big as dollars. And he said, "You owe a lot to the Little Rock Nine who integrated this school. You allow a lot to Daisy Bates and the other people who supported them. You owe a lot to the people who were there long before them. You cannot take this achievement and throw it away on drugs." And then he said ...I'll never forget it. And I thought, "Where are all the conservatives when you need them to cheer?" Jesse Jackson looked at these kids and he said, "You have to open your brains, not your veins."

(04:28:25)
And I thought to myself, no matter how long I live and stay in politics, I may never have a single line that's that good. I mean, think about it. It's totally brilliant. It captures personal responsibility and caring and self-survival. All these pastors here who've done such a great job on this, I know you spend endless hours when you're putting your sermons together and you're running your programs and your churches and things. What can we do that will work? And whenever I get discouraged, I think about Jesse and I just laugh. Well, you got to open your brains and not your veins.

(04:29:23)
So 10 years later, I was living in the governor's mansion and Jesse shows up for the 30th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock Central High School. By then, I'd become governor and we bring all them back to the governor's mansion because that's where Governor Faubus plotted to disenfranchise them and keep Black people out of school. So we had a big dinner that night. And after the dinner was over, Hillary asked Jesse to hang around so he could talk. We went to the kitchen, put some more food on the counter and talked till midnight. And Hillary said, "You know, we all got to work tomorrow. I'm going to bed." Two hours later, Jesse and I are still going about it and she walks into the kitchen and throws us out. I'll never forget it. We did not always agree. But I'll tell you one thing, he made me a better president when I got in office because he was always pushing on things and he knew that change came from the outside in and sometimes from the inside out. So he knew how to keep pushing and nagging and wearing you out. Look at Governor Pritzker laughing here. I mean, it was really, it was like having a dog to the bone. I said one time when he was working on something in Africa, because I made him a special envoy for African diplomacy, I said, "You know, we might ought to put Jesse on the list." And one of my aide said, "Only members of Congress are on that list." I know, but I said, "I think we need to put him on anyway." So I had another guy who was there and said, "What the list is?" He said, "It's a list of people that'll dog you to death until you do what they want you to do. So we just call it the just say yes list." Put it on the just say list that save you so much time and you can go on and do something else with your day.

(04:32:17)
And I remember how impressed I was in 1988 before I became president when Jesse and negotiated with the Governor Dukakis and the other people at the Democratic Convention to end the exclusive primaries, which he talked about it and the concusses, and to open up the Democratic process and add people, including Willie Barrow and Representative Maxine Waters, who became one of our senior leaders. I'm saying this to make another point, everybody knows how eloquent he was and everybody knows that he could talk an owl out of a tree, but he actually was interested in policy, in specifics. So that's the second thing I'd like to say. So what if you weren't big, tall, broad shouldered and eloquent like Jesse Jackson? If you want to make change, there's still plenty you could do if you got an agenda. You've got to have it. He always had an agenda. So that's the most important thing I could say to you.

(04:34:05)
Now, one other thing I am going to say, Wordsworth, you don't think about Wordsworth when you think about Jesse, but words Wordsworth, "The life's best hope of a good man's life for the little unremembered acts of kindness and love." So I used to think all the time about how hard Jesse's childhood must have been with his mother and then having to go past his father's house and all that and all the mixed up. And I knew a little about not nearly a severe situation because of my situation and I admired his mother. I was afraid of Jackie, I'd do whatever she said. I love him so much. But I liked his mother and he called me one day and he said, "This is purely personal, but my mother liked you and I'd really appreciate it if you would speak at her service." And he said, "Andy Young's coming and you know there aren't that many of us left anymore who are over 75 and have been through all this." And I said, "I would be honored."

(04:35:46)
I know this sounds funny, but it really meant something to me that he wanted me to talk in his mother's memorial service. And then, I don't think I've ever told anybody this, when the Congress was trying to run me out and I was in that big impeachment fight, Jesse called me one night in the White House, I thought he was calling me. He said, "I don't want to talk to you. I want you to go get Chelsea." Now keep in mind, he's got all this other stuff going on. We got other stuff. He called me to talk to my daughter to make sure she had her head in the game and he prayed with her on the phone. You know a lot of people, it would never even have occurred to them to do that.

(04:36:58)
And ever since Hillary and I went to visit Jesse in the hospital and Jackie and a lot of the family were there, I've been thinking about him calling my daughter. He didn't know if I was going to be president in six months. He didn't know what was going to happen. But he liked Chelsea. I thought [inaudible 04:37:26] had good taste. But my point is, those are the things you remember. So I think we should honor him by saying okay, maybe I'll never come up with a line like open your brains and not your vein. Maybe I'll never give a speech that will move hundreds of thousands. But I can do something. I can still be somebody and what should I do and how can I, with whatever speaking ability I have or don't have, do what he did when he calls Bill Clinton's daughter in a crisis. When he ask a friend, "I know you may be busy and my mother's not famous, but would you please come say a few words?" Andy Young and I went, we both went and we were there.

(04:38:42)
So that's what I want all of you to think about when you leave here. This guy lived a big life. He lived with his head and with his heart. He was faithful to the scripture which said, "We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But unlike a lot of people in politics, he didn't go around looking down his nose at other people. He hated the sin and not the sinner. He was always trying to lift people up. So I'm here more as a friend than a former president. He was my friend when I needed it. And I ask you to ask yourselves how you can do more by being a better friend and a more effective one. God bless you. Thank you.

Speaker 10 (04:39:58):

Come on, let's thank President Clinton again for those remarks. Reverend Jackson believed that women deserved equal pay. Reverend Jackson believed women deserved equal opportunity. Reverend Jackson believed that women should hold the highest roles and positions in the land. The first woman, the first African American woman, the first Asian American woman, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris (04:40:56):

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Mrs. Jackie, and to the entire Jackson family, on behalf of Doug and my family, we pray with you as we did a couple weeks ago in your home, and we thank you. I thank you.

(04:41:20)
So let me just say, I predicted a lot about what's happening right now. I'm not in to saying I told you so. But, we did see it coming. But what I did not predict is that we would not have Jesse Jackson with us right now to help us get through this. And this afternoon has been such a beautiful remembrance of his spirit, his life, and his faith, and in a way that Reverend Al talked about it and so many others have, I do think of this afternoon as what it is doing for me to renew my faith in what is possible, fueled by the hope that Jesse Jackson so often reminded us of.

(04:42:22)
I'm reminded of a passage in the Gospel of Matthew 7:7, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you."

(04:42:41)
And so from a young age, we know that Reverend Jackson saw that the doors had been closed to the millions of people across our nation and throughout the world who were otherwise so deserving. And they were doors, of course, to opportunity, to equity, to justice, to freedom. And so he dedicated his life, as we all know, to breaking down those barriers. So when we are speaking of these doors, I will share with you that as a child, I was raised that when you see a closed door, you must knock and wait to be invited in. What life has taught me is that if that invitation is not offered, and if that door remains shut, even after repeated attempts to knock on said door, sometimes you have no choice but just to kick that door open.

(04:43:59)
Reverend Jackson was impatient. He did not waste time waiting. Even when the doors in front of him were barred and bolted, even if those on the other side hesitated or even ignored him, he always devised a way through. Jesse Jackson was a strategist. He was one of the most effective community and political organizers of our time. And he was the founder, I think most would agree, the founder of the modern progressive coalition. Think about the work that he did, in addition to the strength of his spirit and his determination. The leadership of Jesse Jackson was defined by his vision, dare I say, his ambition, to tap into what otherwise had been untapped in terms of the potential of a coalition of seemingly different people who could be brought together around shared values and ideals and experience. That's what Jesse Jackson did. He modeled that for so many of us.

(04:45:18)
Over the past half century, that coalition strategy, his methodology has been the heartbeat for so many movements about progress in our country. Those movements born out of struggle, but resulting in progress. Think about, and it was mentioned, the women leaders that he elevated, like the self-described colored girls who have been a driving force behind so many campaigns that have been about freedom and justice.

(04:45:52)
Throughout his life, Reverend Jackson reminded us that the many fights for freedom are interconnected. He saw not only the interconnection, but the interdependence of the various struggles for justice and dignity on behalf of Black Americans, Native and Asian Americans, Latino, LGBTQ Americans and Americans with disabilities. That was Jesse's rainbow, and he continued to grow it. He gave us the language, the rainbow, to understand as has been said, the beauty that comes after the storm, when we see what is possible and what can be unburdened by what has been.

(04:46:40)
As he once said, when a barrier falls for one of the locked out, it opens the doors for all. And that is what he told me and what he taught me and how he inspired me. I was a student at Howard University, well, you know, when Jesse Jackson was one of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement, and me and my classmates would go out on the mall every weekend and protest, looking at Jesse Jackson as a model of what that movement should and could have been.

(04:47:26)
I was a law student then in 1988 when Jesse Jackson decided to run again. I was the first Black woman elected district attorney of San Francisco as the first Black woman elected district attorney in the state of California in 2004 when I created one of the first in the nation initiatives as a prosecutor that was about getting jobs and counseling to those who had been in the criminal justice system. And at the time, the powers that be told me I was not supposed to be doing that. They said, "Why are you letting people out of jail when you're supposed to put them back in?"

(04:48:11)
Jesse Jackson spent a lot of time in the Bay Area, many of you may know. I saw Butch Wing here and Butch, together with Jesse Jackson, would visit with me during those earliest days of my elected career to give me the support and the confidence and the initiative to think about how in a position such as being DA, I could continue the idea about what it means to build coalition around a group of people whose dignity must be seen and the resources that must be put into them. Jesse Jackson, from my first elected position to when I ran with Joe Biden for Vice President of the United States and when I became the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, always told me and convinced me that everything that we were doing is possible.

(04:49:10)
And so I just want to share what I brought today. I brought with me two momentums from Jesse Jackson's campaign that I have saved since I was a student. So one is this button that reads Jesse Jackson '88. The other, some of you who are around at the time may remember is this button. I will read it to you and, pastors, please forgive me. It reads as follows, all caps, "Damn straight, exclamation point. It's time for a Black presidential candidate." That was a Jesse Jackson pin from those days and just a beautiful example of his determination, his sense of humor, but his ability to see what can be unburdened by what has been.

(04:50:12)
And I thank you, Jesse Jackson, for your service, for your service to our nation and the world, well done, good and faithful servant. Well done. Thank you.

Reverend James Meeks (04:50:40):

Joy and a privilege to have Vice President Kamala Harris. At this time, ladies and gentlemen, I want to bring a current president. The president of Colombia is here. Where is the president of Colombia? Come on, sir. The president of Colombia is here. President Petro. We honor you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Dr. James Zogby (04:51:28):

I did not learn English at school, so there will be interpretation.

(04:51:45)
To the entire Jackson family, my condolences, these are difficult times and you have my solidarity. Like others who've spoken today, I cannot ... Or, unlike others, I cannot share anecdotes from personal experiences, even though I did once meet Jesse Jackson, and I also gave him an award that is the highest honor that one can receive in Colombia. I did so because I saw him as a living symbol of the struggle to uphold the legacy of all of the Africans who had been brought across the seas by force. I come from the country of beauty. We are very proud to live amidst such beauty. We have great natural diversity, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. We are an explosion of life. And this has led me to think that life is also a form of energy. And then Einstein, in his equation, left out one thing, which is vital energy, the energy of life. Which also, according to physics, becomes transformed over and over again. And as living beings with life energy, there's one part that dies, but then our energy is transformed. And this natural life energy that we find in our country, in the hundreds of thousands of species, plant and animal species is also something that we find in the beings of our world and of the Americas. And so since I can't really share personal experiences that I have shared with Jesse Jackson, instead, I would like to speak a little bit about the history of Chicago and the history of Colombia and certain aspects that we share. And I came across the name of someone with a French name, Jean-Paul Du Sable, an African and American, and who fell in love with an ancestral American, that is to say a Native American woman, in this very place. And I understand that he is considered to be the founder of this city from his home where he experienced love. It's not known for sure whether he was Haitian, but I will assume that he was from Haiti because of his French name. And so he lived here freely, as an Afro descendant, as somebody at the same time that Haiti had become a free country at that time, lived here with

Dr. James Zogby (04:57:00):

... freedom. It just so happens that yesterday there was a debate in the Colombian press. Now, most of the Colombian press don't like me. Most of the press outlets are owned by very wealthy people. Because I appeared in a cameo role in a film being filmed in Colombia with an actor from New York, whose name is Cuba, an Oscar award winner, and the name of the movie is José Prudencio Padilla. I hope you see it. And it is about an African American man who was born in the far north of Colombia in the Guajira Peninsula. And he was the founder of the Colombian Navy, and we call him the great admiral. And he was a Black man whose parents were slaves, African slaves. And the mother was an Indigenous woman of the Wayuu people in that part of Colombia. As a young man, he fought under the French flag against the British and Admiral Nelson. He fell prisoner under Admiral Nelson. And then he was at his town of Rioacha making a boat and the liberator Simon of Colombia and South America, Simon Bolivar, encountered him there. And Bolivar came from Haiti with the first flag, which is still the flag of Colombia, a three-color flag. Half of the flag is blue and red, and the yellow part at the top represents the sun of the Caribbean. And the blue and red that followed represented the flag that was best known in the world as a symbol of liberty. And this was done by Black men and women who had freed themselves cutting the chains, and they created the biggest and most important revolution in the world at that time. And this paradoxical coincidence of places that are so far apart, Chicago, Haiti, Colombia, La Gran Colombia, as it was known at the time leads me to think of one concept: This struggle for liberty has a base which is called human diversity.

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