Media Contacts:

Frank Watkins
202-744-6061
fewatkins917@yahoo.com
John Mitchell
773-255-9067
jmitchell@rainbowpush.org

REV. JACKSON CONVENES LEADERS TO MEET WITH SEN. SANDERS

Statement By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Yesterday Democratic presidential candidate, and long time friend, Senator
Bernie Sanders met with me and several other leaders for about an hour at the
Rainbow PUSH Coalitions national headquarters in Chicago and on a
conference call. We discussed a wide-range of issues regarding economic and
racial justice.
We were impressed as we listened to his concern about Democrats writing off
the South in presidential campaigns. Hes campaigning now in what is
considered traditionally conservative areas and doing well and if he is the
Democratic nominee he told us he intends to campaign for the votes of all
Americans in all 50 states. Hes not writing off the South and we highly
commended him for that!
We were impressed with his commitment to address both economic justice and
racial justice issues as he campaigns for president. We were impressed with
his straight moral talk about wealth and income disparities in the United States
and his straightforward plans to do something about it in the name of fairness
and justice.

We were impressed with his openness and willingness to address the issues of
racial injustice that confronts the African American, Hispanic, Asian, and
Native American communities in terms of jobs, job training, education and
health care.
We impressed on him the need to revive and restore the US Civil Rights
Commission as an independent and credible research and fact-finding
institution with the moral force to change America for the better. We
impressed on him the need to revive and reform the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance (OFCC) as vehicles to effectively discourage employment and
contract discrimination and aggressively enforce the law when it does occur.
We were impressed with his willingness to legislatively fix the damage done to
the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Courts Shelby decision;
impressed with his voting rights reform legislation to make voter registration
automatic at the age of 18; but we also appealed to him to consider adding a
right to vote amendment to the US Constitution to permanently explicitly
established in our nations highest legal document the fundamental individual
right to vote.
Overall we were very impressed by Sen. Sanders and we thought it would be
wrong for anyone, especially the press, to divert attention to a label and miss
the mainstream issues hes discussing and underestimate our good friend Sen.
Bernie Sanders.
-30Rainbow PUSH Coalition is a multi-racial, multi-issue, progressive, international organization
that was formed in December 1996 by the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. through merging of
two organizations he founded Operation PUSH People United to Serve Humanity (estab. 1971)
and the Rainbow Coalition (estab. 1984). With headquarters in Chicago and offices in
Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, the organization works to make the American Dream a reality
for all citizens while advocating for peace and justice around the world. RPC is dedicated to improving the lives of all people by serving as a voice for the voiceless.
Its mission is to protect, defend and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields while promoting peace and justice around the world.
Get Informed & Be Social with PUSH!

Keep up with Rev. Jackson and the work of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition at www.rainbowpush.org.