Peter H. Bell: “tonight, I will begin by talking about what it meant to be Black in America before Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. The…”

“tonight, I will begin by talking about what it meant to be Black in America before Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. The message this country sent to Black children, whether they grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, or in St. Louis was simple: You are not enough. Not enough to lead. Not enough to run. Certainly not enough to win. Jesse Jackson spent his entire life dismantling that lie. That message didn't start with any one person. It was written into the founding documents of this country. It survived the Civil War. It survived Reconstruction. By the time the civil rights movement had finally forced America to live up to its own words on paper--the right to vote, the right to sit anywhere in this country, the right to walk through the front door--there was still something left untouched. It was something deeper, the belief, planted in generation after generation of Black children, that the rooms behind those doors weren't really meant for them. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., walked into that breach, and he didn't just march. He ran. In 1984, kids across this country--I was one of them--were watching a Black man on television, not appealing to anyone's conscience, not asking for inclusion, but running for President of the United States, winning delegates, walking into that convention floor, and demanding to be taken seriously. Jesse Jackson, Sr., understood something that a lot of people still haven't caught up to: The vote and the dollar have to move together.”