Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday In Chicago: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Otis Moss Jr. Discuss King Legac

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 13px;">BY: <a class="float_left arial_14 bold color_222222 line_height_normal" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-erbentraut" itemprop="author" rel="author" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold !important; line-height: normal; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Joseph Erbentraut</a> </span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br /><div class="float_left" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div id="potd_block" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="big_photo" itemprop="photo" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><img alt="Martin Luther King Jr Birthday Chicago" class="pinit" height="233" id="img_caption_2481739" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/943363/thumbs/s-MARTIN-LUTHER-KING-JR-BIRTHDAY-CHICAGO-large.jpg?7" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: auto; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px; margin-top: 1px; max-width: inherit !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="320" /><br /><div class="caption" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; max-width: 260px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 260px;">The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to the crowd at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Dedication ceremony in Washington in 2011. Jackson spoke Tuesday in Chicago about King's "unfinished" agenda. (MLADEN )</div></div></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br /><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">CHICAGO -- On what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 84th birthday, political and faith leaders gathered on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus on Tuesday to honor the civil rights pioneer's legacy and to discuss what King would have made of President Barack Obama's second inauguration.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"></span><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">In a discussion serving as the centerpiece of the Chicago-headquartered <a href="http://www.rainbowpush.org/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Rainbow PUSH Coalition</a>'s 23rd annual scholarship breakfast celebration, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Otis Moss Jr. -- both of whom were with King in 1968 on the last birthday he celebrated -- said King would be there "supporting the inaugural celebration, but he would not be satisfied" by what he saw in the nation's capitol if he were alive today.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"The debate in Washington is about the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling," Jackson told HuffPost at the event. "It is not about poverty. It is not about the working poor. It is not about racial disparities that take away from health care and education. It's not about a plan for reconstruction. … It is unfinished business."</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Jackson, a former Democratic candidate for president and Rainbow PUSH's founder, met King in 1965 and was working as a full-time organizer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference soon after. Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, the day he was murdered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When Jackson retold the story of how the gunshot that killed King echoed through the spring air that day, the "BANG!" reverberated off the walls of the UIC's exhibition hall.</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">After his friend's assassination, Jackson said the focus of civil right advocates was never on finding the gunman, but to target a larger culprit: "a sick society."</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"We never stopped fighting," Jackson said. "It's really from the bloodstain of the balcony in Memphis to President Barack Obama winning out here in Grant Park, we never stopped fighting."</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Looking ahead to Obama's second inauguration on Sunday, Moss said "the moments of celebration can never separate us from the commitment and life-long struggle." Moss noted that just one day after King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 in Oslo, Norway, <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">he gave his "Quest for Peace and Justice" speech</a> in which he famously vowed to "press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope."</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"We live in an unfinished cathedral and we have to build on that. Dr. King laid a great foundation starting in Montgomery, but we have the responsibility of understanding, interpreting and being the dream," Moss said.</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Meanwhile, amid <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/obama-assault-weapons-ban_n_2480819.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">the White House throwing its weight</a> behind the push for an assault weapons ban and after Jackson called <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/jesse-jackson-assault-weapsons_n_2473963.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">semi-automatic weapons "threats to national security</a>" this week, Jackson again addressed gun control laws Tuesday morning.</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When asked for a reaction to former Republican presidential candidate <a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/289801379235651584" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Newt Gingrich's criticism of Chicago</a> as having some of the nation's "strictest gun laws" while also experiencing <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/chicago-homicide-rate-new-york_n_2378073.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #00614f; cursor: pointer; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">a surging homicide rate last year</a>, Jackson described the Windy City as "an international theater for a war" that "Homeland Security must address."</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"There are no gun shops in Chicago, so the guns are coming in from the suburbs, the drugs are coming in from Mexico and the jobs are going out to the Far East," Jackson said Tuesday. "The combination of drugs in and guns in and jobs out, that's the zone of disaster. Using Chicago as a jumping-off point is at the source of reality."</div><div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font: normal normal normal 15px/21px Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 18px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Moss and Jackson were to be joined In Chicago by the Rev. Andrew Young, former congressman, Atlanta mayor and a close friend and supporter of King's, but Young came down with pneumonia and was unable to participate. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle all delivered remarks at the event.</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #101010; color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;">Martin Luther King Jr.'s Speeches</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><div class="articleBody" itemprop="articleBody" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #101010; color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></div><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TAYITODNvlM?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 13px;">From: </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/">http://www.huffingtonpost.com</a></div>

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday World's Hot Daily News Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday In Chicago: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Otis Moss Jr. Discuss King Legac

BY:  Joseph Erbentraut   The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to the crowd at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Dedication ceremony in Washington...

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