Jesse Jackson urges young blacks to unite to fight for affirmative action

Calling for an end to apathy, Rainbow Coalition founder Jesse Jackson recently urged young Blacks to take up the cause of affirmative action which recently has come under attack by the United States Supreme Court.

Defending affirmative action in admission and hiring policies, Jackson said he is trying to fan the flames of 1960s activism in the younger generation.

"Somehow they've become much too comfortable," Jackson said after a recent rally at UCLA. "They lost their will to fight." He noted, "Here we are in 1995 with our freedom and our hope up for debate and negotiation all over again."

The debate over affirmative action was stirred with the high court ruling that stipulated that federal affirmative action programs should be subjected to more stringent standards. He said the affirmative action backlash is a result of a shifting job market and the lack of leadership.

Commenting on the loss of enthusiasm in the Civil Rights Movement during the past three decades, Jackson noted, "There's something fundamentally different about... this kind of Woodstock. 'We can't make it,' cynical-withdrawal, choose- dope-over-hope syndrome."

He concluded, "Those who would dare be free, those who would dare make a difference, must have an ethic, a state of morality and a quality of courage that is higher than the cultural norm."

Jackson also blasted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the Supreme Court, who also cast the deciding vote in support of the recent rulings which threaten affirmative action.

"In a very real sense, Clarence Thomas has betrayed the very social justice movement that made his opportunities possible," Jackson said in USA Today. "Without the laws we worked for, he couldn't have gone to Yale, couldn't have gone to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), he couldn't have gone on the Supreme Court."