Tekst 25: Jesse Jacksons tale Rainbow Coalition, 1984
Talen Rainbow Coalition holdt Jesse Jackson (f. 1941) for The National Democratic Convention i 1984, hvor Jackson opstillede som præsidentkandidat. Han blev født i South Carolina som et uægte barn. Hans far anerkendte ham aldrig offentligt, i stedet blev han adopteret af Charles Jackson i 1957.
Fra The Will of a People. A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches, Southern Illinois University Press, 2012, s. 287-289.
President Reagan says the nation is in recovery. Those ninety thousand corporations that made a profit last year but paid no federal taxes are recovering. The thirty-seven thousand military contractors who have benefited from Reagan’s more than doubling of the military budget in peacetime, surely they are recovering. The big corporations and rich individuals who received the bulk of a three-year, multibillion tax cut from Mr. Reagan are recovering. But no such recovery is under way for the least of these.
Rising tides don’t lift all boats, particularly those stuck at the bottom. For the boats stuck at the bottom there’s a misery index. This administration has made life more miserable for the poor. Its attitude has been contemptuous. Its policies and programs have been cruel and unfair to working people. They must be held accountable in November for increasing infant mortality among the poor. In Detroit, one of the great cities of the western world, babies are dying at the same rate as [in] Honduras, the most underdeveloped nation in our hemisphere. This administration must be held accountable for policies that have contributed to the growing poverty in America. There are now thirty-four million people in poverty, 15 percent of our nation. Twentythree million are white; eleven million black, Hispanic, Asian, and others – mostly women and children. By the end of this year, there will be forty-one million people in poverty. We cannot stand idly by. We must fight for a change now.
Under this regime we look at Social Security. The ‘81 budget cuts included nine permanent Social Security benefit cuts totaling $20 billion over five years. Small businesses have suffered under Reagan tax cuts. Only 18 percent of total business tax cuts went to them; 82 percent to big businesses. Health care under Mr. Reagan has already been sharply cut. Education under Mr. Reagan has been cut 25 percent. Under Mr. Reagan, there are now 9.7 million female head families. They represent 16 percent of all families: Half of all of them are poor. Seventy percent of all poor children live in a house headed by a woman, where there is no man. Under Mr. Reagan, the administration has cleaned up only 6 of 546 priority toxic waste dumps. Farmers’ real net income was only about half its level in 1979.
Many say that the race in November will be decided in the South. President Reagan is depending on the conservative South to return him to office. But the South, I tell you, is unnaturally conservative. The South is the poorest region in our nation and, therefore, [has] the least to conserve. In his appeal to the South, Mr. Reagan is trying to substitute flags and prayer cloths for food, and clothing, and education, health care, and housing.
Mr. Reagan will ask us to pray, and I believe in prayer. I have come to this way by the power of prayer. But then, we must watch false prophecy. He cuts energy assistance to the poor, cuts breakfast programs from children, cuts lunch programs from children, cuts job training from children, and then says to an empty table, “Let us pray.” Apparently, he is not familiar with the structure of a prayer. You thank the Lord for the food that you are about to receive, not the food that just left. I think that we should pray, but don’t pray for the food that left. Pray for the man that took the food to leave. We need a change. We need a change in November.
Under Mr. Reagan, the misery index has risen for the poor. The danger index has risen for everybody. Under this administration, we’ve lost the lives of our boys in Central America and Honduras, in Grenada, in Lebanon, in nuclear standoff in Europe. Under this administration, one-third of our children believe they will die in a nuclear war. The danger index is increasing in this world. All the talk about the defense against Russia: the Russian submarines are closer, and their missiles are more accurate. We live in a world tonight more miserable and a world more dangerous. [...]
If we cut that military budget without cutting our defense, and use that money to rebuild bridges and put steel workers back to work, and use that money and provide jobs for our cities, and use that money to build schools and pay teachers and educate our children and build hospitals and train doctors and train nurses, the whole nation will come running to us.
As I leave you now, we vote in this convention and get ready to go back across this nation in a couple of days. In this campaign, I’ve tried to be faithful to my promise. I lived in old barrios, ghettos, and reservations and housing projects. I have a message for our youth. I challenge them to put hope in their brains and not dope in their veins. I told them that like Jesus, I, too, was born in the slum. But just because you’re born in the slum does not mean the slum is born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up. I told them in every slum there are two sides. When I see a broken window – that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a glazier – that’s the sunny side. When I see a missing brick – that’s the slummy side. Let that child in the union and become a brick mason and build – that’s the sunny side. When I see a missing door – that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a carpenter – that’s the sunny side. And when I see the vulgar words and hieroglyphics of destitution on the walls – that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a painter, an artist – that’s the sunny side. We leave this place looking for the sunny side because there’s a brighter side somewhere. I’m more convinced than ever that we can win. We will vault up the rough side of the mountain. We can win. I just want young America to do me one favor, just one favor. Exercise the right to dream. You must face reality – that which is. But then dream of a reality that ought to be – that must be. Live beyond the pain of reality with the dream of a bright tomorrow. Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress. Use love to motivate you and obligate you to serve the human family.
Young America, dream. Choose the human race over the nuclear race. Bury the weapons and don’t burn the people. Dream – dream of a new value system. Teachers who teach for life and not just for a living; teach because they can’t help it. Dream of lawyers more concerned about justice than a judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned about public health than personal health. Dream of preachers and priests who will prophesy and not just profiteer. Preach and dream!
Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breedscharacter. Character breeds faith. ln the end, faith will not disappoint. Our time has come. Our faith, hope, and dreams will prevail. Our time has come. Weeping has endured for nights, but now joy cometh in the morning. Our time has come. No grave can hold our body down. Our time has come. No lie can live forever. Our time has come. We must leave racial battleground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground. America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to amazing grace. Our time has come. Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled masses who yearn to breathe free, and come November, there will be a change because our time has come.
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