Jesse Louis Jackson is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. These Jesse Jackson quotes will motivate you.
Best Jesse Jackson Quotes
- “Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be responsible for getting up.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “I was extended secret service protection during my presidential run in 1984, when I received the most death threats ever made toward a candidate.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “We must face the No. 1 critical issue of our day. It is youth crime in general and black-on-black crime in particular. There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved. After all we have been through, just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes. Keep hope alive.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “If you don’t know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “What’s good for the very rich might not be good for anybody but them.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “You can’t teach what you don’t know. And you can’t lead where you don’t go.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“If you try you may fail, if you don’t try you’re guaranteed to fail.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.” ~ Jesse Jackson , Jesse Jackson quotes on leadership
- “The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Today’s students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “You can’t plant a seed and pick the fruit the next morning.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“When everyone is included, everyone wins.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “The burden of being black is that you have to be superior just to be equal. But the glory of it is that, once you achieve, you have achieved, indeed.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “The only time you should look down at someone, is when you are helping them up.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “We’ve removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“We are facing a stiff wind right now, but if we persist and keep fighting back, we will prevail.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “That’s just like America. It’s made up of lots of different people. We’re all different colors, different ages, we do different jobs — but it takes all of us black people, white people, brown people, men and women, young and old, working in the factories, working in the fields, working in offices, working in stores — it takes a lot of different kinds of people to get the job done for America.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “You know, people’d always ask “Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?” They never seen the house I’m running from.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Most poor people are not on welfare. . . I know they work. I’m a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people’s children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change beds you slept in these hotels last night and can’t get a union contract. They work every day . . .” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn’t put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “No lie can live forever.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Our goal was not freedom. Freedom was the necessary prerequisite to get to equality.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites — rather than fighting for jobs or education — fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use – having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We will run the country.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “That’s all Hymie wants to talk about is Israel. Every time you go to Hymietown that’s all they want to talk about.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“If you wear a hoodie but aren’t registered to vote, you got the symbolism but missed the substance.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “His foreparents came to America in immigrant ships. My foreparents came to America in slave ships. But whatever the original ships, we are both in the same boat tonight.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “That Obama I would like to cut his nuts off.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Politicians refuse to modernize schools, they cut out midnight basketball, but build all these new jails. First class jails, second class schools. This is zero tolerance.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “It’s not enough to be quiet. Quietness is the absence of noise. We need peace, the presence of justice and to be – and so people here can coexist and live together.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “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.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “I am – Somebody. I may be poor, but I am – Somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am – Somebody! I may be uneducated, but I am – Somebody! I must be, I’m God’s child. I must be respected and protected. I am black and I am beautiful! I am – Somebody! Soul Power!” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Semi-automatic weapons are not just about gun control, they’re about national security. You know that these weapons can shoot down airplanes, they can blow up railroads. This is really a whole national security issue.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“The only justification we have to look down on someone is because we are about to pick him up.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “It is a historical error for those who were not there to just refer to August 28th as ‘I Have a Dream’ speech day. That is a real disservice to those who were there. It was a sad day. It was not a celebration environment.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “I came to the conclusion that in order to end racial barriers, I needed to run for the office of the president and put forth an agenda of social justice and world peace. In addition, I concluded that someone needed to run and challenge the liberal orthodoxy.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “From seeds of his body blossomed the flower that liberated a people and touched the soul of a nation.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.” ~ Jesse Jackson
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“We live on the dash between our birth date and our death date.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “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.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “At the end of the day, we’re defined by our predicament, not by the sides of town.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “The crown jewel of Dr. King`s movement was to protect the right to vote for all citizens.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “If you and I got on an airplane, you’re going to L.A., Los Angeles, and I’m going to Senegal, we get there about the same time. The world is just that small. So a world that is so tightly bound by science and technology and now Internet and the web page, that world is too small for bullies. It has no room in that world for arrogance.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.” ~ Jesse Jackson
- “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.” ~ Jesse Jackson
