In the spirit of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 War on Poverty, Rev. Jesse Jackson will speak at Ohio University today to appeal for a White House Commission on poverty, malnutrition and human need.
Jackson is a two-time presidential candidate and the founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, an international social change organization. Jackson’s OU speech will mark the beginning of a nationwide anti-poverty campaign reminiscent of the one that brought Johnson to OU almost 50 years ago.
Jackson will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. today outside Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium — the same spot Johnson delivered his May 7, 1964 speech.
About 15,000 people attended Johnson’s address, during which he urged OU students and Athens residents to confront poverty with enthusiasm.
“Our goal is a Great Society in which no child is underfed or unschooled, no one is unemployed and no person is barred from any door because of his race, religion or place of birth,” Johnson said, according to a Post article. “This is what waits for you. Reach out for it now.”
This will not be Jackson’s first trip to OU. On April 26, 1998, Jackson spoke at a town meeting about economic problems in Appalachia. The next night, he presented a similar speech in the Convocation Center.
“The middle class is anxious, facing downsizing, outsourcing and loss of benefits,” Jackson said, according to a Post article. “The middle class feels the giant sucking sound of gravity’s downward pull.”
He delivered his message in the midst of an Appalachian bus tour focusing on poverty that took him to various locations in Athens and Morgan counties.
Jackson spoke at OU again in 2004 as part of a bus tour promoting the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s “Reinvest in America: Put America Back to Work!” campaign. Jackson will follow his news conference with a speech at noon in the Baker Center Ballroom.
“The debate is too limited. The pain is intensifying. We need a White House Commission on poverty, malnutrition and human need,” Jackson wrote Sept. 20 on the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s website. “Only the president has the platform to ignite this debate and Congress has the moral burden to close ranks behind his leadership and lift millions out of the sinking sand of poverty.”
rm279109@ohiou.edu
