Rev. Jesse Jackson Speaks to Hundreds at Law School on Economic Justice

A day after he rallied in support of affirmative action in Los Angeles, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson was at Harvard Law School spreading his unique gospel of economic justice.

Speaking to several hundred students in the Ames Moot Courtroom yesterday afternoon, Jackson asked the group to support the cause he so recently shepherded on the west coast, that it is inclusion and diversity which will eventually lead the country to broader economic growth.

"There are those who say, `Let the marketplace have its way and we'll all grow and prosper," Jackson said. "But then race, sex, and religion can be barriers and make the market flow in unnatural paths."

Jackson's speech also included a political viewpoint that he has expressed frequently in recent public forums: that America's inner cities are the last great economic frontier. Despite differences highlighted in metropolitan areas, Jackson insisted that the American dream is a vision all Americans share.

"The American dream is a big tent dream," Jackson said. "All of us fit in one big tent and none of us are left on the margins," he said.

Jackson described the shared characteristics of the dream as equal treatment, opportunity, access to social goods and entitlement to those goods. All of these requirements, Jackson maintains, will build a "big tent" open to all "those who yearn to breath."

The way to enlarge the tent through economic channels involves, according to Jackson, bridging the gap between the "state of the political union" and the "state of Wall Street." This process will require the navigation of two very different sets of economic systems.

Jackson said that opponents of affirmative action couch the debate concerning reconciliation of these systems in the language of race, obscuring underlying economic issues.

"There is no race gap," he said. "There are gaps which are quantifiable...gaps in education...gaps in the legal system--who goes to jail and who goes to school," Jackson said.

Jackson used the recent Super Bowl to support his argument. "There were blacks in Denver pulling for whites in Denver to tackle whites in Green Bay," he said. "There were no race incidents and they were in hand-to-hand combat."

Jackson next turned to historical analysis of current events involving affirmative action. He gave examples he said show that the wealth that white Americans have built up is primarily the result of government largess.

Jackson maintains the Homestead Act was in part responsible for this trend of government sponsored racism. The act, passed in 1862, gave millions of acres of land exclusively to white settlers.

Jackson said the process of biased allocation of economic resources continues today with the government's refusal to wholeheartedly pursue a program of affirmative action.

"Affirmative action," Jackson said, "is a compelling national interest."

Also a national interest, Jackson said, is investment in the inner city. Last month, Jackson brought this message to Wall Street, meeting with brokers and investors and even taking Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on an informal tour of Harlem.

In addition, Jackson's political advocacy group, the Rainbow Coalition, recently opened an office in downtown New York. When critics question this strategy of engaging the economic power structure directly, Jackson said he often refers to a story he was once told as boy.

Two old men are sitting on a railroad track, drunk and tottering. One says to the other, "I'm going to buy this railroad one day." The other responds, "I'm going to sell it, so have a drink on me!"

The moral according to Jackson? "Until the railroad owner's at the table, it's nothing but a joke," he said.

Jackson's speech, part of the Law School's Saturday School program, was well received by the audience yesterday in the crowded courtroom.

"I'm happy that it wasn't based on black versus white or us against them," Charmaine S. Mangaroo said.

A first-year law school student, Mangaroo said speaking about economics made Jackson's message "more legitimate than basically talking about morals."

Other students attended the speech simply to see an American icon.

"I'm psyched to be in the same room with him," Andrew J. Rossi, a first-year law school student, said. "I think he's had significant achievements... simply to be the only African-American to run for president is significant enough."