“Keep your eyes on the prize” was the message Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. delivered to audience members at George Mason University (GMU) in an effort to inspire social change and increase voter turnout for the upcoming Virginia elections in November.
On Friday evening, Jackson spoke at GMU’s Harris Theater as a part of his “Healing and Rebuilding” tour, where the civil rights leader called for students, faculty and community members to use the power of their vote to make a difference.
“What’s different about our struggle today? Well, we have the law on our side…the right to vote,” Jackson said. “We’ve advanced in these last 50 years, and we must not let the forces of meanness and meaninglessness set us back.”
Jackson’s opening remarks called to memory the four little girls who were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama exactly 54 years ago to the event’s date—Sept. 15. The long-time civil rights leader said that their untimely deaths made them martyrs for justice, as did the killing of Heather Heyer on Aug.12 in Charlottesville.
The power of “innocent blood can take us forward, not take us back,” said Jackson. “In that tradition…Heather Heyer must be that to this generation because in many ways, we have to redefine this dimension of our struggle.”
During his speech, Jackson highlighted the progress made by decades of fighting for equal voter access starting with women’s right to vote in the 1920s, to the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. He also discouraged people from attending, if possible, upcoming planned protests by White supremacists and KKK members to prevent more violence and potential deaths.
“There are more of us than them,” he said, adding that the focus should be on retaking Congress. “Don’t be a backdrop to their protests. We must be the generation with character who cares.” Instead, he suggested that this generation’s “burden” is to create a “more perfect union” where we must “build bridges not build walls.
