On June 8, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Reinvest in America: Put America Back to Work! campaign came to College Green at noon. Speakers at the rally included Rev. Jesse Jackson, Ohio Senate Democratic candidate Terry Anderson, Rep. Richard Gephardt and Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America.
The tour is promoting the need for higher-paying jobs, easily accessible health care and a better education system.
Roberts said this campaign has been a 15-year journey for him, beginning with a coal mining strike in Virginia.
Our thrust today is to make visible the plight of the working poor of America
Jackson said.
Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is a multi-racial, international organization working for social change. Created in 1996, he combined the two former organizations National Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH.
Roberts said 35 million people are living in poverty in America. There is a $500 billion deficit in the federal budget, and 150,000 people wait in food lines each week in Ohio alone.
It's time for a change. It's time for people to pay attention to people that have no decent health care education or jobs Gephardt said.
Gephardt said the United States needs a national program so all citizens can have health insurance.
Forty-six million Americans do not have health insurance. For people to say we can't afford to do it
we can't afford not to do it
he said. Health insurance is not a privilege
it's a right
and every American has that right.
A new educational program also needs to be created, he said.
I'm here to tell you Leave No Child Behind is not that program; the only way we're going to fix Leave No Child Behind is if we leave George Bush behind
Gephardt said.
Jackson said he thought too many jobs have gone overseas and that he would like to see more brought back to America.
Gephardt said the answer to these problems is creating national policies that bring dollars and jobs back to America.
People work as hard as they can
and they're still in the food pantries to eat in the year 2004
he said. There's something wrong with America when hard workers can't make it. We have to change that.
One economic problem is that the government has invested in bridges, roads and hospitals in the Middle East, Jackson said, but not in America.
We have an investment plan in Iraq. Why not have an investment plan for America? When we invest and people grow
everybody wins
