Rev. Jesse Jackson on A Different World (1989)

earlier today as I contemplated this lecture tonight I thought about the young man who'd been on a rather sad and melancholy mood feeling insignificant impotent worthless that he did not count as I thought about him it occurred to me that his real problem was he felt that as one person he could not make a difference the change in America there's tick inflation in the last 30 years has occurred because some of the thought that they could make a difference the change did not come from Wall Street or the White House or the Congress the courts you always started by some young person who thought that they could in fact make a difference Rosa Parks got on a bus one day the sign that bought the drivers had read the colored seat from the rear white seat from the front violators will be punished by law she refused to go to the back of the bus and she was arrested dr. king went to her rescue a 26-year old student and told the bear that you walk in dignity than ride in chain one person can make a difference in 1957 nine students at Little Rock Central High in Arkansas with the school one day led by the army they refused to bow they made a difference in the next few years young America died that we might live Medgar Evers was killed in cold blood about this right to vote Swarna Goodman and Chaney to Jews and african-americans were bored those to death with their eyes wide open in Philadelphia Mississippi about this right to vote Jimmy Lee Jackson's 15 year old african-american students shot and killed in Marin Alabama about this right to vote for darling little girls blown up in the church in Birmingham Alabama one Sunday morning all about the right to vote they made a difference you must make a difference whenever students are sober and sane insensitive and put hope in their brains and not open their veins they can always make a difference because they died your generation has the power john chenda was elected by a margin of 112 thousand votes less than one vote per precinct everybody counts Nixon beat Humphrey by five hundred fifty thousand votes Carter be fought by a million seven fewer than three million both elected three presidents in 16 years today they're 3.2 million high school seniors alone graduating they should come across that stage with a diploma in one hand and the bullet caught in the other twelve million college students must vote you have the power you must not have the attitude it's not my aptitude but my attitude that determines my altitude ahaha we'll go my mind is a pearl I can learn anything in the world just because the grades I don't have to drown I may have been born in the slum but the slum was not boiling me I can rise above my circumstance hair that was pick cotton can now pick presidents you want a free Mandela in free South Africa [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Rainbow PUSH Coalition

Views: 14,401

Keywords: voting, youth, jesse jackson, a different world

Id: KUDQhdKxjH8

Length: 4min 3sec (243 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 19 2018