Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. delivered a passionate and intimate eulogy for his father, civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson, reflecting on what he believes is his real legacy in American culture.
Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. delivered a passionate and intimate eulogy for his father, civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson, reflecting on what he believes is his real legacy in American culture.
While he opened with jokes about former presidents running long in his remarks, Jackson Jr.'s speech took a spiritual and personal turn, contemplating his father's role as civil rights fighter and hope-giver for the country. As he told the crowd, 'I want to talk about my daddy.'Read the full text of Jesse Jackson Jr.'s eulogy for his fatherIf I can have everyone's attention for just a moment, I promise that I'm going to bring this program to a tighter close and get us out of here at a reasonable hour.Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, Pastor Browning, in three and a half minutes. Martin Luther King Jr delivered the I Have a Dream speech in 13 and a half minutes. If it can't be said between the Gettysburg Address and I Have a Dream, it ought not be said at allFor what remains of my time, and I promised Yousef that I would not be more than seven or eight minutes, I want to talk about my daddy.Now, when Martin Luther King Jr died in 1968 he was an immensely unpopular figure. Brother Reynolds, Brother Sharpton, members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were present, Dr King on April 4, 1968 was immensely unpopular.Who he is today is not who he was on April 4, 1968 and I'm sensing, Sister Parker, on this occasion that we are moving in the direction of a Jesse Jackson that I wouldn't, mama, even recognize.Jesse Jackson at the hour of his death, was not, Roland Martin, a popular figure. He would have been fighting for the Affordable Care Act. He would be fighting to save the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and challenging the Supreme Court to render a decision in the Clay decision that would strengthen the Congressional Black Caucus and not undermine itIf you are a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and you are still here, allow us the opportunity to recognize you. Will you please stand. Members of the CBC came from around the country, and our congressional districts are under threat at this hour. I want to try and summarize in the five minutes that I have left some of what I heard from everyone, starting with President Clinton. He said, 'with head and heart.''With Head and Heart' is the title of the autobiography written by the doctor, late Dr Howard Thurman, who dedicates his life story to simple and haunting simplicity. Mr. Mayor, he dedicates the book, and I quote this. Jonathan, 'to the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach, who restored my broken dream 65 years ago.'To the stranger who was Jesse Jackson To the political class that took up most of his time, Dad was a stranger awaiting a return phone call, reminding the political class of the urgency of the hour.That's who my daddy was.To the economic class that Jim Reynolds talked about on Wall Street, my father had no qualifications in business or in finance, to be able to talk intelligently, initially about the transactions of Wall Street, but to them, he was the stranger.So this story comes together in Howard Thurman's book with my final four minutes. In this way, Brother Turner, it says that Howard Thurman's sharecropping family had been gathering in the deep south all of the coins of their hard work, and they had put just enough money together to send Howard Thurman to college by buying him a train ticket.And when he got to the train station after having loaded all of the broken pieces, Pastor Dates, into his life and of his life into a trunk, the conductor of the train told him, Judge Mathis, that he could not carry the trunk on the train unless he bought another ticket.And so Howard Thurman went over in the corner of the train station, and he began crying, crying for the idea that after all that his family had been through, he would not mama be going to college.And as he cried through those tears, he looked up and saw a pair of brown old rustic boots. And then he looked up and he saw a man in overalls. And he looked up and he saw a Black man, and he said, the Black man said to him, Son, why are you crying, boy?And Howard Thurman said, because the broken pieces of my life, I cannot take with me to college, because I need a ticket.And the old man, Sister Bryant and Reverend Bryant, reached into his pocket and pulled out a little leather sack and took some coins and went and bought Howard Thurman a ticket for his luggage.And Howard Thurman says in the story that all he remembers is the man walking down the train tracks while he and the train were heading in the opposite direction.Pastor Muncie, he dedicates his book to the stranger who changed the trajectory of his life by restoring his hope.Every single person in here has a Jesse Jackson story, the time he shook your hand, the time he prayed for you, the time he held you up, the time he prayed the funeral for somebody that you know, the time he was at the hospital for you, the time, Roland, when you lost your job and he prayed you to a new a new course of existence.Everybody has, Sister Waters, their own Jesse Jackson story.Why? Because, according to Dr Walter Fluker, the infinite Howard Thurman scholar, he says, to Howard Thurman the stranger, watch this his preachers, the stranger was God.Two minutes.The stranger was God. Because he redeemed and restored the hope of Howard Thurman, a man whose name he did not know, and he sent him to college.At the moment that he needed hope, hope showed up in the form of a stranger.It's impossible, Roland Burris, for one man to know all of the people that Jesse Jackson has touched.Everybody here doesn't have the number. He don't need it no more, 773-251-6353. But just about everybody in here had the number 773-251-6353.It's a flip phone. It's analog. He didn't believe in iPhones and Samsung. He believed in a flip phone because whenever we needed, Isiah, the stranger, that's what I heard you say, when the stranger showed up in the locker room, when the stranger showed up in them projects, when the stranger showed up, the stranger came in the form and in the embodiment of Jesse Jackson. Because he is the one, Reverend Sharpton, who we came into contact with, who restored our hope and changed. Meeks, the trajectory of our lives. Now, I'm going to go on ahead tomorrow morning at PUSH, 930 East 50th Street. Part two of this will be there because I got enough sense to know that I've already talked too long. I want you to think about the stranger, Reverend Dyson, in your life, it's going to be a nameless, faceless person who enters your life and restores your hope. And so, when Jesse Jackson said, I don't care what the political class says, they're only interested in high propensity voters, my father looked at the undecided, Father Pfleger, and he recognized that they lacked somebodyness, and he told them to keep hope alive. But that's not enough.Keeping hope alive is the answer to suicidality, not only for individuals who might want to kill themselves, but for a nation on the brink of self destruction. Keep hope alive for a man or a woman getting ready to hang themselves who's given up on hope, Bishop Ellis, Reverend Jackson says they need hope, not dope.Kevin Adell,he took the ministry from Sunday morning and he delivered it to the people.I am somebodyness is what Jesse Jackson is known for, not the '84 and '88 campaign and voter registration. Jesse Jackson's greatest contribution is not political. It is psychological. Negro, you are better off today than you were when you met this Negro!.
Jesse Jackson Jr. Funeral Jesse Jackson
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Full remarks from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson at Rev. Jesse Jackson's funeralChicago Mayor Brandon Johnson delivered remarks at Rev. Jesse Jackson's funeral at House of Hope in Chicago Friday.
Read more »
Gov. Wes Moore says Democrats should heed lessons from Rev. Jesse Jackson with democracy under 'assault'Natasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
Read more »
Kamala Harris, Barack Obama use Jesse Jackson funeral to unload on TrumpToday's Video Headlines: 03/06/26
Read more »
Full text of President Bill Clinton's eulogy at Rev. Jesse Jackson's funeral in ChicagoFormer President Bill Clinton said in his remarks, 'I'm here more as a friend than a former president. He was my friend when I needed him.'
Read more »
Full remarks from former President Joe Biden at Rev. Jesse Jackson's funeralFormer President Joe Biden delivered remarks at Rev. Jesse Jackson's funeral on Friday at House of Hope in Chicago, telling the crowd to take home with them Jackson's own central message: 'Don't give up.'
Read more »
Chicago elementary school students react to Jesse Jackson's celebration of lifeInside St. Sabina Academy, Ms. Mayberry’s first grade class wore hats that read “I Am Somebody” and colored photos of the late Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Read more »