Using the commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a backdrop, Rev. Jesse Jackson chastised President Bush Monday for his recent stand against an affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan, saying the president is undermining King’s dream of equality and freedom.
Joined by Chicago and state leaders at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s annual breakfast honoring King, Jackson said Bush’s claim that the university’s race-based enrollment policies are unconstitutional should spur to action those concerned with civil rights.
“We would have hoped the president would have been on America’s side to even the field. He has not,” Jackson said. “So we must engage in massive direct action, massive street protests to protect the integrity of the civil rights struggle.”
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The holiday also served as a rallying point for about 25 anti-war protesters from Loyola University who recalled passages from a 1967 King speech in which he criticized the Vietnam War for sucking resources from the war on poverty.
“We feel Martin Luther King would not support a war with Iraq, because like the Vietnam War, there are no clear-cut reasons,” said sophomore Jackie Boyd, 19, as she marched with other members of the Loyola Anti-War Network along North Michigan Avenue. “The overwhelming loss of life that would result would not solve any problems, and human life is precious.” At the Rainbow/PUSH event, Jackson was joined by dozens of politicians, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Mayor Richard Daley, as he hammered home the “affirmative action = educational opportunities” theme of the event.
Jackson’s criticism of Bush was not unexpected, but also disagreeing with the president on affirmative action was Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican and University of Michigan Law School graduate.
“I am opposed to quotas, but I do believe that some outreach and diversity is a very good thing for our colleges and universities to strive for,” Fitzgerald said at the breakfast. “[The Bush administration] argued the University of Michigan’s program, in effect, amounted to a quota. I’m not sure I agree with that.”
The Rainbow/PUSH event highlighted commemorations around the city for King, who would have turned 74 this month.
Although most schools in the area observed the holiday by closing, the 700 elementary and high school students at Providence-St. Mel School on the West Side spent the day in an assembly and classes learning about the civil rights movement.
“Dr. King was an educator,” said Paul Adams III, the founder and president of Providence-St. Mel. “It makes absolutely no sense to close the school for someone who preached that education is salvation, it is the thing that can turn a life around.”
Adams said the key civil rights issue of today is the “deplorable education many of our young people are receiving in inner-city schools. I want them to see the power of the vote and that they can use it to make things better.”
“I think this helps the young people realize there was a movement before and hopefully there will be one after them; that they have a responsibility for keeping it alive,” he said.
At the Rainbow/PUSH event, former Gov. George Ryan told the crowd of more than 1,000 that men once on Death Row could soon be leaders in the modern-day civil rights movement.
Ryan received the organization’s Martin Luther King Jr. Peace and Justice award for negotiating an end to a 1999 controversy involving students at Decatur High School and his decision to pardon four men on Death Row and commute the sentences of more than 160 others. Ryan appeared on stage with Aaron Patterson, one of the men he freed from prison.
Ryan told Patterson he and the others could be leaders of reform, just as other “wrongfully convicted who came before you have done.” But he warned them that they must be disciplined.
“Don’t lash out, as you may have a right to do, but don’t do it with anger. But instead reach out to console,” Ryan said. “You’ve been given a new lease on life. Don’t thank me. Thank God for showing me the way.”