Jesse Jackson: “The Struggle Continues” (1988)
Document Text
These last seven years have been especially painful. While our sons and daughters have died in Grenada and Lebanon and Europe, this President has not met with the Congressional Black Caucus one time. Denial of access. In these last seven years, this man suggested that those in South Africa who were shot in the back had provoked the shootings. In these last seven years, our complicity with South Africa, in Angola, in Namibia and inside South Africa, continues. In these last seven years, Reagan opened up his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, sending a signal that was missed by too many people. There’s not even a railroad in Philadelphia, Mississippi, not even a small airport. The only thing it is known for is that it is where the civil rights activists Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were found murdered. On that day of Reagan’s announcement, even the Klan were there in their paraphernalia. I tell you from Philadelphia, Mississippi, to Bitburg, Germany,...