I am in your debt for your choosing to take the time to post it here.

Here is a man who lived through the civil rights movement, was active in the civil rights movement and was arrested in the civil rights movement, speaking for Black Americans. Here is a man who negotiated throughout the world to free, black Americans from Iran’s hostage situation, who freed hundreds of foreign nationals from Saddam Hussein grip, negotiated the release of three U.S. POWs captured on the Macedonia border and hostages in Syria .

Jesse Jackson marched with KING, created operation PUSH and the rainbow coalition at a time when blacks were not educated and were disenfranchised. He pioneered holding over 40K black parents to help close learning gaps between blacks and whites and introduced the first initiatives to educate previously disenfranchised black children.

These are just a few of the things Jesse has done in his lifetime, thus his tears when Obama became the President elect. Jackson didn’t do these things as an elected official or as a presidential appointee, though Clinton appointed him to go to Kenya to quell the threat of war, to the very country from which Obama sprung. Those of us who have lived long enough to remember when, to remember when the only voice heard, speaking on behalf of the disenfranchised was the voice of Jesse Jackson, we may not agree with all he does but at least we understand.

It takes very little time for subsequent generations to forget what came before them and it takes less time for them to forget what lies ahead. Even today, as most Americans resign themselves to the mundane, refuse to help their fellow blacks, still victims of police brutality, black crime, white crime or institutional racism, Jesse Jackson is at least willing to put down the remote control, let go of the computer mouse and stand up loudly for those who otherwise have no voice.

He may not speak for you but if you need someone to do so, who in the world will you call? Will you call your mate who mistreats your vows, will you call your friends who are fair weathered, will you call your fellow black citizens who wouldn’t loan you a quarter to make a call? There is no one to call and no one who will listen. That is, except, the Jesse Jacksons of the world. When you say he does not???t speak for you, I ask, who does speak for you?

You are not immune to death from blackness, unemployment from blackness, racial discrimination from blackness. I could never call on you to march for me and I see few blacks who are their brother’s keepers. So when something unconscionable happens to black Americans because they are Black, they look to Jesse Jackson because of his track record, his historical curriculum vitae, his willingness to stand when all else sit and criticize.