**Jessie Jackson:** 137 Psalms, first to the fourth verses; by the
rivers of Babylon there we sat down yay we wept when we remember Zion,
when we reflect on what we had come from. We hang our hops up on the
willows in the mist thereof and black belt, for there they carried us
away captive required of us a song \<inaudible\> required of us a mirth
sing, sing us one of the songs of Zion. And under such great duress,
under such pain we asked the question how shall we sing the lords song
in a strange land? I wanna talk today about singing in the house, I
remember so well coming here to meet Reverend C.T. Vivienne and the
Abbot Turner and James Arndt and Sunshine and the crew, one dark and
rainy night. And the sheriff\'s blocked the front doors of this church,
they would not let us out because there was gonna be a march at night
down the street. And while they were outside with the uh... their clubs
and their artillery we began to sing in this church and our sense of joy
\<inaudible\> was defiance. They could not fathom us having joy in a
locked up church and founder Dr. Abernathy negotiated with Jim Clark\'s
crew and allowed us to stand outdoors all night in front of the church
in the rain and then many of us caught pneumonia. The reason I did not
go further on that march because I caught pneumonia in the rain all
night from this church. And through it all we sang with the power that
defied their comprehension. One thing worse than being captured
physically is for your mind to be captured and you spirit to be broken,
your ambition dwarfed and your culture lost. Someone once asked Harriett
Tubman to celebrate, they want to reward her for- for freeing so many of
our parents who had been in slavery and they said great descriptions of
the work and said you\'re such a great woman and so we bring you forth
for the award. So why don\'t you sing to share our sense of joy, she
said well I could have freed more if they\'d known they were in slavery.
I could have freed more if they had known they were enslaved, to some
freedom seems not to matter, they\'ve adjusted to their situation,
they\'ve surrendered their spirits, they\'ve lost hope and self
confidence, they don\'t register, they don\'t vote, they don\'t boycott,
they don\'t march, they don\'t even remember. The right to vote
preserves all other rights, America\'s democracy was not born July
4^th^, 1776, it was not born 1789 at the constitutional convention,
American Democracy was born in Selma in 1965, America\'s Democracy is
just 39 years old, we don\'t live under the Jefferson democracy, we live
under the King democracy, Jefferson democracy has no export value in the
world today. No one wants a democracy where some are considered 3/5\'s
human, no one wants a democracy that coexists with slavery, no one wants
a democracy where women cannot vote or when one\'s old enough to serve
in the military but not old enough to vote. This democracy where all can
vote, 18 year olds can vote, colored students can vote, where you go to
college \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ their rights. Where blacks and
browns can vote and normal language barriers for those who speak a
language other than English. Where there are no longer white indentured
servants who can\'t vote because of poll taxes. This democracy which we
seek to export around the world as the standard comes from Selma not
from Philadelphia and the modern King, not from Thomas Jefferson. Bloody
Sunday it\'s a pivotal moment in America\'s history, we speak of the
obsession with the Mel Gibson passion, the bible is for Jewish people a
history book, it documents the travels of Israel with god in history. To
many of us it is a mystery book, we often speak of I\'m the biblical
scholar, that means- that means that you know of god\'s walk with the
Israelites. But you should not be a PhD in gods walk with somebody else,
\<inaudible\> gods walk with you, they had their red sea, we have our
Atlantic Ocean and our Mill Passage. They have their Jordan River; we
have our Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. God is not just was, god is a
is and while there was a passion on cavalry of the historical Jesus and
the crucifixion there\'s also a passion at Edmond Pedders Ridge. He came
that we might have life and that more abundantly and our uh...
oppression did not give out nails in Rome; they still got some nails
left. \<Inaudible\> the crucifixion one \<inaudible\> the resurrection
on a Sunday morning. We still cannot stop mean men from oppressing the
innocent and they cannot stop god from removing stones and resurrecting
them and so our faith is a living thing. Why do I come back here every
year, last week I was in Libya, North Africa at the African Union
Conference, while communicating with Haiti,
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Sunday morning in Paris, France. Why
am I here today because this is our landmark, the bible instructs us,
remove not the ancient landmarks our mothers and fathers have set. The
brother said from the children of Israel got across the Jordan River and
just as he opened up the Red Sea, he opened up the Jordan River, the
great sense of celebration, you\'ve gotten across the river, no one
drowned our enemy has been left behind. God said to the prophet get 12
men from 12 tribes and get 12 big rocks and take them and put them into
the river, someone murmured what sense does that make. We\'re not going
backwards, the rock at the bottom of the river has no value, we\'ll go
on forward into the future, let\'s don\'t worry about history, we\'re
with the future, we\'re with tomorrow. God said to the prophet, the
value of those rocks are that they are memorial, they are a source of
memory, you know how you got across the river, you met miss Marie
Foster, you met Abbott Turner, you met Rath Abernathy, you know how you
got across the river, you- you met John Lewis, you met Jose, you met
Fred Solsworth, you know how we got across the river. The bible says but
in time to come you children will ask you what are these stones, you
must tell them lest they will not know and they do not know then they
will honor false gods. They attribute their freedom to reasons other
than the truth which is that god stopped the waters. They\'ll begin to
worship it themselves and they\'ll become \<inaudible\> they will upset
the real god and he will become\-- and when god becomes angry at the
heavens cloud and the sun cease to shine at noon today, you don\'t wanna
make god angry and so teach the children of these stones. 39 years ago
loss of lives and resources and priorities in Vietnam, we lost 55,000
lives we left bewildered burying our young, shifting to the war on
poverty to a war in Vietnam 39 years ago, today lessons unlearned from
\<inaudible\> and surplus to misinformed misadventure into Iraq, losing
lives and resources and priorities and 3 million jobs. Today
embarrassingly involved in a coup in Haiti, removing an elected
president to a coup in Central Africa, collaborating with terrorists,
CIA supplying arms defies comprehension. We\'ve abandoned the Munro
doctrine \<inaudible\> security, violated refugee policy, stood Statue
of Liberty on her head, somewhere I read give my your tired, your poor,
your whole masses unless they come from Haiti. Two sets of rules, the
Cubans come, Cubans get an extended hand and a subsidy, Haitians a bowl
of fish and a jail and we go not just across a bridge today but we go to
visit Haitian refugees Tuesday and Wednesday because it\'s a living
struggle. Marines that are protecting and empty palace today, another
president two weeks ago, today we seek to heal the breach, to build the
bridges to close the gaps. But the king was speaking of the 4^th^ stage
when he was taken away from us, first stage to end illegal slavery
\<inaudible\> six years battle. Second stage to end illegal Jim Crow
apartheid, third stage the right to vote, fourth stage, access to
capital industry or technology. Here we stand today, out of slavery, out
of Jim Crow, the right to vote, without \<inaudible\> and therefore
recycling poverty and pain. Alabama 39 years later, the state 30%
African/American, 19 appellate judges, zero African/American, district
attorney\'s, zero African/American, sheriff\'s 5, \<inaudible\> 30%
black 20\-- 39 years later. Through it all we\'re on our feet, still
marching over mountains, through valleys, across rivers, surviving cold
winters, we have the power to elect the next district attorney, we have
the power to elect the next congress, the power to elect the next
president because of Edmond Pedders bridge. The blood of the innocent in
Selma, Alabama, then we look at the new south, this day is a been a long
time coming, if the white vote the economic interests and not their
racial fears, if blacks vote hope and not despair we can recapture the
American dream. For the record we\'re losing great races, but the margin
of despair 1960 Kennedy beat Nixon by 112,000 votes, less than one vote
per precinct, every vote matters. Carter beat Ford by a million 6, every
vote matters, but the King killed April 4^th^, 68, Robert Kennedy killed
June the 5^th^, did not our hearts bleed, despair abounded, we dropped
our rods, hung our harps on the willows and by that margin Richard Nixon
one. When you drop your hops and cease the joy of your music, you lose
great races by the margin of despair. 1992 Bush and 1996 Dohl got more
white votes than Clinton, he got more white, black and brown votes than
they got and he won. When we vote we determine presidents and our vote
is stopped as it was in Florida, we lose, so I don\'t vote on nothing
but \<inaudible\> the course of our country. Today we\'re in a new
south, we can play ball together and Alabama plays Mississippi on a
Saturday afternoon, they knew in the south. But for the record in the
new south, most poor people are not black, we speak of black but there
are many white belts, they\'re more whites in Appalachia than there are
blacks in America, that\'s a white belt. Whether white or black when
they turn the lights out and your plants go to a cheap labor base we all
look at major assembly in the dark. In the end the issues not black and
white it is dark and light, the new south must turn the lights on,
\<inaudible\> North Carolina went to work one Wednesday morning, plant
gate closed without notice. Because those workers voted against
\<inaudible\> they voted for the right not to have a place at the table,
they voted for darkness and darkness they got. Most poor people are not
black, they\'re white female and young. Whether white, black or brown
hunger hurts, most poor folks are not on welfare they work everyday,
they catch the early bus, they raise other peoples children, they work
in fast food restaurants, the do day labor, the cook at our schools,
they\'re chauffeurs, the work in the hospitals, they\'re orderlies and
they\'re aides, they mop the germs off the floor, they wipe the bodies
of the sick and cool \<inaudible\> and even yet when they get sick they
cannot lie in the bed they make up every day. It\'s time for a change,
keep on marching beyond the bridge. They\'re better off going to the big
universities and get the degrees, Jessica Lynch and Shohola Johnson the
poor go to Iraq and get medals and the rich get no bid contracts and off
shore oil breaks. We\'ve been led from surplus to deficit, we should
vote in November to give Bush time to come back to Alabama and finish
his national guard duty. Am I here by myself, look at the faces of this
struggle, I\'m 62, my father would have been 96, his parents were in
slavery, I\'m three generations out of slavery, slavery\'s now a blur. I
don\'t refer to our fore parents as slaves, there were fore parents and
ancestors who were enslaved, they were people, they were parents to
which we have subjected congenital ties to. Fore parents enslaved who
survived it, the long dark \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ there is a strange
student of reference, 1619, 1719, 1819, 1865, 246 years of legal
constitutional slavery, that\'s not the immigrant tradition. Illegal to
learn to read or write, illegal to marry, illegal to have church service
on Sunday mornings, illegal to go to med school, to go to law school,
illegal to teach, illegal to benefit from free lance \<inaudible\>
illegal. 246 years, from 1619 to 1965 is 346, Selma ends 346 years of
legal denial of the franchise, Selma. From Jamestown, Virginia to Selma
is a 346 year journey, you all bear with me for a moment today I- I
believe in shouting I come from that tradition but shouting is the
overflow of the substance, shouting is like the gravy, the gravy must
have a meat base unless it\'s just greasy water. Gonna have a little
meat time, say meat time, say meat time. I\'m often asks should blacks
celebrate July the 4^th^, the answer is \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ July
4^th^, we\'ve been enslaved from 1619 to 1776, 157 years and there was
this declaration of independence from being colonized but not to end
slavery and so they made no mention of our being enslaved so we cannot
celebrate somebody else\'s freedom from England\'s so that July 4^th^
has no meaning to us. It just- it just does not, does not mean that we
are not patriotic, it just means we were ignored on that occasion so we
can\'t be dancing to somebody else\'s party \'cause we were not invited.
There\'s July 4^th^ 1852 in which Frederick Douglas has asked in the
negros is eloquent, why don\'t you talk for us, you know, you can talk
their talk. He said I can talk but I can\'t celebrate because I\'m a
fugitive from slavery, you guys been talking freedom now for 76 years
since 1776 and here I stand today if I get caught they can take me away
from here, I better not talk too much and 5 years later, Dred Scott
found it out, supreme- supreme court said blacks no right, whites bound
with respect so July 4^th^ 1852 is a day of protest, but that\'s July
4^th^ 1863 \<inaudible\> freedom.

\#### End of Tape A19 \####