Below is the full text of an address by Jesse Jackson in London, in 2009. He was addressing an event organised by British Tamils.
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Let me express my thanks sincerely for Father Emmanuel. Father Emmanuel is the Archbishop Tutu of the Tamil struggle. Please stand again.
To the distinguished parliamentarians, Mr Sharma please stand… Let’s give all of them a big hand will you please.
Let me say to you tonight that I am delighted and honoured to share with you again on this sacred occasion - the people coming together, the thirst for dignity and justice and freedom.
See you gather here from 14 countries around the world. After all that you have been through, you deserve very special recognition by the world community.
I say to you tonight, no matter how difficult the struggle is, truth crushed to earth will rise again. It will not go away.
I want to urge you to join the Rainbow PUSH Coalition International, because we seek to globalise justice, with mercy and grace around the world. The Tamil community, you are part of that vast body of people seeking your rightful place under the sun.
Sometimes it is dark and difficult. It seems all the odds are against you. Sometimes you might feel abandoned.
Fifty years ago, I was arrested in Greenville, South Carolina, along with six classmates, trying to use a public library. We lived under state-sanctioned terror. We were accused of being unable to learn, and then locked up for trying to use a public library. Yet another contradiction.
As providence would have it, as we meet here tonight, this week in 1965 people in Selma, Alabama — a small place south of Birmingham and north of Montgomery — sought to march across the bridge in Selma, Alabama, in America, in 1965.
Lots of POWs, lots of prisoners of war, had the rights black soldiers did not have in their uniforms. How humiliating it was.
When Dr King went to Washington in 1963, you tend to think of the “I Have a Dream” — the uplifting part of that speech. What is not often dealt with is the context of that speech. It really was not a speech about the dream. It was a speech about the broken promise.
He said in effect, “Lincoln, we stand in the shadow of your majestic monument. And you promised, if we’re looking at the Congress and the 13th Amendment. You promised. And here we are 100 years later — an unfulfilled promise. A promissory note, a bounced cheque marked “insufficient funds””.
The day he gave that speech, my brothers and sisters, from Texas across Florida, up to Maryland, we could not use a single public toilet in our own country. The day he gave that speech, those who had money, because they were African American, could not buy ice cream at Howard Johnson’s, could not rent a room at Holiday Inn. Our money was counterfeited by terror.
Against those odds, we dreamed above our circumstances. We would not go away.
In 1965 we faced a kind of bloodbath, not the extent of what the Tamils have gone through. I once asked George Wallace, on his dying bed, went to him and have a prayer with him. I said, “Governor Wallace, why that Sunday in 1965 — why did you unleash the dogs and the horses on the marchers?”
In a tone as sincere as he could be, he said “I did the marchers a favour.” I said, “I don’t understand.” He said, “On the other side of the bridge was a mob, and I had the marchers beaten by the state troopers so they would not be beaten by the mob.”
It never occurred to him to break up the mob, but to beat the marchers. The depth of his sickness was revealed in that moment of agony, as we sat there and talked and prayed together.
Yet against those odds, in Selma, Alabama in 1965, where the governor unleased dogs on innocent people. Against all, that Sunday in some remote place in Selma. Today there is an African American President, Barack Obama. Through it all - truth crushed to earth will rise again. We would not go away.
We were in slavery in America for 246 years. And then the promise of freedom was betrayed in 1877. The law passed in 1896 for legal apartheid. We will not go away. Then the 1954 Supreme Court decision.
We, as a people my friends, Tamil people, we will not go away.
So today, we stand with a new sense of renewed dignity, because we the people will not go away. You must not go away. You must stand tall and fight for your dreams, and your hopes and your aspirations.
The United States and Britain, and the United Nations must not forsake nor abandon the Tamil people. We must not forsake or abandon. Sometimes we wait too late.
If you will, it is highly suggested in World War II, because Hitler had been an ally in the name of being a Christian and being a capitalist, many nations waited too late to take on the Nazi reign of terror. Fifty-five million people were killed because nations stood idly by and waited too long.
We must not wait for another massacre of Tamil people. We must not wait too long and wait too late.
No nation in the family of nations has the right to live outside the family of nations. Every people must have equal protection under the law. No nation has the right to live outside the global family, and all of us must be protected within that global family.
Sri Lanka cannot live outside the rule of family. You must be protected inside the rule of family. And so the media must have access to Sri Lanka. The media must have access to the concentration camps. People in the world must cry out against this crime against humanity.
But you keep marching, and don’t give up.
I should never forget, some years ago around 1979, I got into South Africa, quite my chance, with a church group. I say the chance, because they were locking people out in those days. I wanted to walk in without saying anything too offensive and get kicked out of the country before I even got in. So I hoped that when I arrived there might not be media at the airport. But… they already printed I was coming to South Africa. And so when I got to the airport, the cameras were everywhere and I was gearing myself up to say something that would not get me kicked out of the airport.
They said, “Reverend, why are you here?” I said, “I am here to meet some friends, to visit some church leaders, some labour leaders.”
“Why are you here?”
“I want to visit the country and see for myself what South Africa is really like.” I was evading the issue of why I was really there.
They said, “Say something. You’re not just here to visit church leaders or just to visit the countryside. What do you believe?”
I said, and I was trying to be modest, “I believe that human rights are for all human beings. Measure human rights by one yardstick.”
What did I say that for? I mean the idea that in tyranny - human rights are for all human beings and measure human rights by one yardstick.
It was thought to be radical. It was a radical cause. Radical deals with the root of things. And in Tamil… and Sri Lanka, the radical idea is that everybody has a right to the tree of life — human rights for all human beings, measured by one yardstick.
There are some guiding principles that we must all abide by. We encourage the peace process. We encourage an end to tyranny and the denial of access to the media. We believe in international law, human rights, self-determination, economic justice, and shared security.
We challenge Britain, the United States, and the United Nations to honour the people of the country, to honour your place at the table with respect and dignity, with no sense of fear nor intimidation.
So I am anxious for you who are here tonight — and we’ll talk with Father Emmanuel about it — to join the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. We should work together.
If they could do it in the south of America, if they could do it in South Africa, it can happen for you.
Do not give up. Keep hope alive.
God bless you very much.
Keep hope alive.
