I was pretty young when Reverend Jesse Jackson was running for the Democratic nomination to be president. I just remember my dad was voting for him and we would often watch his speeches. I can’t say I remember them all but I remember bits and pieces from his speech at the Democratic Convention in San Francisco. I think he was the first person to ever mention equality for gays and lesbians while running for a major political position like President of the United States. Probably something that wasn’t even in the forefront at the time but it certainly is today. The beauty of his speech was not that he mentioned gays and lesbians though, he mentioned everybody. This was a part of Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition speech. “America is not like a blanket, one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. 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.” This speech was made on July 18, 1984. This is a message I think we need to hear again today over 40 years later. Even his political opponents respected him as a good, kind hearted person, Gary Hart had said this about Jesse Jackson, "no derogatory feelings in his soul.” Ronald Reagan praised him for his help in getting home a captured pilot in Syria. He also helped get home many Americans being held in Cuba and in Iraq, as well as people from other countries. He saw people as humans, not just as Americans or the countries they were from. This is something missing from people’s views right now. Was Jesse Jackson perfect, far from it, he made his mistakes, but no one can argue the good that he had in his heart.
