Jesse Jackson was King Turkey Day speaker in 1986

<p>WORTHINGTON — Civil rights activist and former politician Jesse Jackson died Feb. 17 at the age of 84 in Chicago, Illinois. Known for his activism, Jackson visited Worthington for King Turkey Day in 1986, giving a speech during the eventful weekend.</p>
<p>Here is the complete story of his visit and speech as it appeared in The Globe Sept. 15, 1986:</p>
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<h2>Jesse preaches farm salvation</h2>
<p>By Tom Pantera, staff writer</p>
<p>The Rev. Jesse Jackson outlined his four-point program for solving the farm problem during a brief press conference after his speech Saturday.</p>
<p>Part of Jackson's program involves a change in attitude. "The first thing we must do for farmers is to have a sense of mercy towards them,"' he said. "That is to say that farmers have emergency needs, like food and medicine and heat."</p>
<p>The second point would be a moratorium on farm foreclosures. If only a few family farms were failing, it could be blamed on the market, he said. But "when 80,000 family farmers are driven from their land, that is a systemic problem. So, you have a moratorium while you make an adjustment in that system.</p>
<p>"The third point would be to 'match' our farm product with the people in the world who need it," Jackson said. Echoing comments he made from the speaker's platform, he said, "You can't say that you have a farm surplus while you have rising malnutrition here and a hunger holocaust in Africa and other parts of the third world. There's a breakdown in distribution.”</p>
<p>Finally, he said, he favors convening an international food and agriculture conference to discuss worldwide food pricing and distribution.</p>
<p>Reflecting on that day's rededication of the Hubert Humphrey memorial: Jackson said that “history will redeem the vision of Hubert Humphrey and reject the vision of Ronald Reagan." The nation must make more of a commitment to health care, educational opportunity for all and feeding the hungry, he said.</p>
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<p>“The vision of Hubert Humphrey for social justice for all Americans and economic justice for everybody was the morally correct way to go.” he said.</p>
<p>Jackson said he has yet to determine whether he will make another run for the presidency in 1988. This year has been spent building his Rainbow Coalition out of “elements that have historically been separated” such as farmers and consumers, rural and urban people, blacks and whites and other minorities.</p>
<p>“At this point, I am at least as close to not running as I am to running.” he said. He will make a decision by next spring after considering how much support and money is available as well as how good a campaign organization he would have.</p>
<p>In an interview later, Jackson said the Democratic party could rebuild its old coalition. "If the party pursues a direction that speaks to human needs, it stands a chance of recapturing the people.” he said. Our thrust does not need to be a new center. It needs to be humane priorities at home and abroad.”</p>
<p>Many Democrats “have been intimidated by Reagan.” he said. “They try to look like Kennedy, quote Humphrey and behave like Reagan. They're sending mixed signals to people.” They are trying to “out -Reagan Reagan,” he said, but the party's future lies elsewhere.</p>
<p>“People want a new course. They want a new coalition. They want their human needs met.”</p>
<h2>Jesse Jackson’s Turkey Day speech</h2>
<p>The following is a transcript of. the Rev. Jesse Jackson's keynote speech at King Turkey Day. The figures he cites at the beginning of his speech were given him, along with a box of corn flakes, by area farm activist Norman Larson.</p>
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<p>The price of corn in Worthington, Friday, Sept. 12, 1986, the year of our Lord: $1.27 per bushel. The of price of cornflakes, 1 lb., 2 oz.: $1.39 per box. Forty-six and a half boxes of cornflakes per bushel of corn, $64.64 per bushel of corn in cornflakes. This means you pay $63 for the ads and the profits.</p>
<p>Let me express my profound thanks to you for being good enough to invite me here to share with you on this Turkey Day festivity. Since this event began the year I was born, there must be some destiny in this occasion. Maybe I was the original turkey, just come here to claim my stake in this situation, trapped somewhere between Worthington and Texas — and that's quite a trap.</p>
<p>We have today a great expression of the true spirit of our nation as I watch you stand in this street, so much joy and celebration in your faces. As I look at closed-down businesses, look at 112 companies that are now off the radio station because they cannot advertise any more. If you were a weaker people, if you were not a spiritual people, if you were not a Godfearing people, if you had no faith and therefore had no hope, you would give up and drown in your tears.</p>
<p>Somehow, you have a resolve born of our faith that nothing breaks your spirit. I suppose that's my appeal to so many of our people who are now committing suicide in the face of the crisis. Do not let the forces of evil break our spirits. Last year in Oklahoma alone, 32 people committed suicide. People in Minnesota have committed suicide. In times such as this, we must not turn to suicide. We must turn to each other and give each other the strength that we need to hold on. We must not bow, we must not give up. Our faith teaches us that weeping may endure for a night, but if we hold on and hold out, that joy will come in the morning.</p>
<p>In this hour of crisis and tension, do not pickle your brains in liquor. Do not snort cocaine or crack. Do not use drugs as anesthesia to avoid the pain of reality. Men, do not strike our women. Young boys and young girls, do not make babies. Let's become more spiritual and more strong and more together and rise above this crisis.</p>
<p>In the face of these times. babies must not make babies, because they cannot really raise them. In this crisis our families must not divorce and separate — they must come together. To separate (turns a community into a gang): When the gang is in trouble, the gang splits up and everybody goes for themselves. But when there is community, crisis must bring us closer together and not break us apart. Today, our hearts are heavy, but yet our resolve remains strong.</p>
<p>We have to have some sense of pain, when you think about Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. The thought of that is a nightmare. Here's a man who's about to assume the chief job in justice, the highest office, the highest example of our scholarship, our dignity, our character, our commitment to justice. Yet, this man signed a restrictive covenant denying Jews the right to move into his neighborhood or (buy) his house. This man, who should have been leading the fight for the right to vote — he had the chance to do so — is guilty of harassing black citizens, indeed veterans of foreign wars, as they fought for the right to vote. This man tried to use his mind to undermine the '54 Supreme Court decision. He represents the lowest and the worst in public behavior. Rehnquist could not become elected to the Supreme Court in a single state in America if the people have something to say about it. It is not right. Fewer than 60 people would make a man (chief justice) who is insensitive to poor people, to blacks, to Jews and to the law.</p>
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<p>And so our hearts are heavy, and yet our resolve remains strong.</p>
<p>Just the past week, we saw again 2,500 people now have been killed in South Africa in the last 18 months. More than 100 ministers are in jail. The general secretary of the Catholic Church of southern Africa has been in jail since June 12. His testicles have been tortured, his toenails pulled off. They have arrested whole churches while they were worshipping in South Africa. Now, more than 13,000 people are in jail.</p>
<p>Our Congress has made a move for sanctions. Our Senate has made a move for sanctions. You've spoken out. We must do something about it. And yet, Mr. Reagan chooses to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe about protocol and manners and not South Africa about murder.</p>
<p>Those are misplaced priorities, my friends. That's not right. To be the leader of the free world, we must have the will to do justice and love mercy in our government and for our God.</p>
<p>Ten percent of our society owns 70% of the wealth; 90% owns 30%. That's unAmerican. That's not economic democracy. The top 40% of our society is making 68% of the income and they get a tax cut. The bottom 40% is making 15.7% and they get a wage cut and a plant closing. That is not fair.</p>
<p>In our society, we have the right to protest for blacks to have a seat from Mississippi. I looked down two nights ago and I know Hubert, like Dr. King, today is in heaven standing high and looking low __ there they fought for (a black person) to have a seat in Mississippi's delegation. And the whites from Mississippi fought the blacks' getting a seat. And they were divided by race in 1964.</p>
<p>The other night, I saw an amazing thing happen before my eyes. About 60 farmers from Mississippi — about 10 were black — they voted for a black farmer to represent them. He stood and said, “I stand here representing the great farmers of the state of Mississippi.” I said, "That's more than an announcement. That's a miracle.”</p>
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<p>When we come together, across lines of race, religion and sex, those who have not can have their share — their share of education and health care and jobs and farms and self respect. Let's come together.</p>
<p>During the benefit last night, there was a press conference. In that press conference, it was said, "Willie Nelson, you've got Cabbage Patch dolls and you've got cabbage growers and who are you for?” Willie said, "Well. I'm for everybody.” They said, "Well, what's the difference between the Cabbage Patch doll makers and the cabbage growers?" Willie kept saying. “I respect both of them. I don't quite understand the sense of your question.”</p>
<p>As he wrestled with that question, which was designed to be a kind of superficial challenge and an attack on Willie, it became clear to me that the Cabbage Patch doll makers were in debt to America, because they made something that was cute but unnecessary and now they have gotten wealthy. On the other hand, America is in debt to the cabbage growers, because cabbage is not superficial. It's vital; it comes from the earth.</p>
<p>Those who have fed the nation and fed the world must now be respected by this nation and respected by this world. We must fight for the family farmer. We are obligated to do so.</p>
<p>On the one hand, you can't tell me we don't need the family farmers when there's rising malnutrition in America and the hunger holocaust in the world. You can't argue a case to me that we have excess food.</p>
<p>I just left a village in Mozambique last week. My friends, in all of our problems: There they stood. 14.000 people, gathered to see me in that village. It had not rained in seven years. In that village, men and women were on their knees, using sticks and makeshift hoes, trying to dig 60 feet deep to find some water. In that village, three women had babies die the day before we got there in a one-room makeshift hospital, without one bottle of alcohol, without one band-aid, without one antibiotic. Against those odds, we should be supplying them some grain from Minnesota. We are sending them bullets. Mv friends, that is unfair, it is immoral.</p>
<p>We look at people starving and give them dollars and will not sell them grain. That's absolute nonsense. We've got to have a new Senate and a new Congress and a new president.</p>
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<p>Don't tell me that we cannot help the farmers. It's really a matter of attitude. We bailed out Chrysler. When I looked at that marriage on July 4. Miss Liberty and Mr. Iacocca got married. (They) had a big celebration.</p>
<p>Don't do me no special favors as a farmer, just do for us what you did for Iacocca. Iacocca got a $2 billion loan. $2 billion for five years without having to make a payment. Loaned below market interest. Laid off thousands of workers, closed down some plants, took some other plants to slave labor markets abroad and after five years you begin to show a profit.</p>
<p>Now, Iacocca's a hard worker and so are you. He loves America, and so do you: But with a $2 billion loan, with low interest, and not having to pay the taxes, you'd have to be a genius to fail, not a genius to succeed. If we can bail out Chrysler, and we should have, if we could bail out Europe and Japan years ago, we can bail out the family farmer. It's a matter of priorities.</p>
<p>Don't tell them we don't have the money. The B-1 bomber, which is unnecessary — every president, from Kennedy to Carter, said we don't need the B-1 bomber — it was costed out at $11 billion. Reagan's (administration) brought it in at $28 billion — a $17 billion cost overrun for an unnecessary bomber. The cost overrun for the B-1 bomber would bail out every farmer and every rancher in America. It's a matter of priorities.</p>
<p>Where's our mercy in our management? At some point in time, you've got to have common sense. Where do the farmers go when they are driven from their land?</p>
<p>I stayed with Perry Wilson, a 74-year-old farmer from Missouri. At 74 years of age, he had been a farmer for 52 years, a veteran, three sons. Now, he's driven from his land. There is no rural development program for him, there is no urban development program for him, there is no job development program for Perry Wilson. Where does he go? He can't pay his insurance, he can't pay heat, he can't get another job; where does Perry Wilson go? His back is against the wall. This man has paid his dues. He is a patriotic American, hardworking American, risk-taking American, senior citizen American, and yet our government says to him, in effect, "you've lived too long."</p>
<p>We cannot be a great nation unless we're sensitive to those whose backs are against the wall. What makes America great is not those who live for more strength, but those who reach back and say, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." That's the greatness of America. By how we treat children, old folks and poor folks, that's what makes America great.</p>
<p>That's what makes America great.</p>
<p>That's what makes America great.</p>
<p>If a mother has five children and two pork chops, she wouldn't go to a computer and conclude she's got three excess children and put them outdoors. If she's a merciful mother, she'll cut two pork chops up into five pieces and make gravy. That's just using good judgment. And I tell you, as long as there's an