Carolina QuotesWell, on the one hand, I saw President Barack Obama standing there looking so majestic, and I knew the people in the villages of Kenya and Haiti and mansions and palaces in Europe and China were all watching this young African-American male assume the leadership to take our nation out of a pit to a higher place. And then, I thought about who was not there. As I mentioned, Medgar Evers, the late husband of sister Myrlie. There's Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, two Jews and a black killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. And Jimmie Lee Jackson. So the martyrs and the murdered whose blood made last night possible. I could not help but think this was their night. And if I had one wish, if Medgar or if Dr. King could have just been there for a second in time, it would have made my heart rejoice. And so, it was kind of the dual thought of his ascendance in leadership and the price that was paid to get him there.
Jesse Jackson Carolinian
Source
On his reaction to Barack Obama winning the 2008 elections, responding the the query "We were all watching the coverage last night, and we all saw tears in your eyes. Why the tears?" in "Civil Rights Leaders React To Obama's Win' NPR (5 November 2008)
- year
- 2008
Cite this record
“Well, on the one hand, I saw President Barack Obama standing…” Jesse Jackson. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-EE0CE5E283. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/ee0ce5e283
More from Jesse Jackson
Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.
We are co-partners in a long and rich religious history -- the Judeo-Christian traditions. Many blacks and Jews have a shared passion for social justice at home and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the spirit, inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to higher ground. We are bound by Moses and Jesus, but also connected with Islam and Mohammed. These three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were all born in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem.
No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born, but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which it is born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice. Only leadership -- that intangible combination of gifts, the discipline, information, circumstance, courage, timing, will and divine inspiration -- can lead us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. Leadership can mitigate the misery of our nation. Leadership can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.