Quotes from Jesse Jackson

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

We've been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are.

Those who have the most wealth and the most property, their children have the first, the best, and the most.

The laws are stacked for the wealthy.

When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that's under economic assault and a poor community that's getting bigger, they're talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there's a 'Ferguson' near you.

So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent.

The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

A new leadership. A choice. A chance. Don't cry about what you don't have. Use what you got.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.

Negroes' problem is that they do not have their egos. That's why our churches end up having a white service, because our preacher is not arrogant enough to take God's word, so he have to go and get some white fellow's agenda and put it in his church.

You may choose your mate, but you cannot deny someone else the right to choose their mate.

I remember being taught my place.

It is in struggle and service with our brothers and sisters, individually and collectively, that we find the meaning of life.

Many kids come out of college, they have a credit card and a diploma. They don't know how to buy a house or a car or health insurance or life insurance. They do not know basic microeconomics.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rater than pushed by our memories.

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.

When I look out at this convention, I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black and white. We are all precious in God's sight—the real rainbow coalition.

Our nation is a rainbow - red, yellow, brown, black, and white - and we're all precious in God's sight.

So here we are today with a new conversation. When University of Georgia plays Georgia Tech, it's uniform color versus skin color. We have - we've overcome that level of racial fear.

My right and my privilege to stand here before you has been won—won in my lifetime—by the blood and the sweat of the innocent.