Civil rights activist and 1980s presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered a guest lecture addressing music and social justice topics on campus yesterday.
Speaking to Afro-American Studies and Religious Studies professor Michael Eric Dyson's "Marvin Gaye" class, Jackson commented on a broad array of subjects, ranging from the role of music in social protest, to his friendship with Gaye, to the current state of civil rights in the nation.
In universities across the country, the issue of civil rights ignites much debate and concern among students and faculty alike. Especially in the realm of higher eduction, the issue of how to achieve equal opportunities across races remains in contention.
"Attending a school like this makes you the upper-middle class, and you are the blessed among us," Jackson said. "You have to work the hardest, because you're somewhere most of the people on this earth can't be."
Jackson was a symbolic leader of the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, and he worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote racial equality. He garnered much attention when running for president of the United States in 1984 and 1988, losing in the Democratic Party primaries both times.
Jackson addressed the connection between music and the struggle for social equality, and how music was used as an extremely effective medium to communicate the movement's message.
"Songwriters articulate the pain they feel in the strongest way. They can take pain and turn it into power," Jackson said, "and that is what Marvin Gaye could do. He put real meaning into his music, and expressed the issues of our fight better than [longtime CBS journalist Walter] Cronkite or the newspapers ever could."
Jackson also spoke of his experiences with the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
"We marched in the cold every year for [Martin Luther King Jr.'s] birthday, before it was made a national holiday," Jackson said. Regarded as a hero after his death, "during his lifetime Martin was hated by our government. They could hear Marvin, but they couldn't hear Martin."
Jackson interacted with the Logan Hall audience of approximately 200 people, asking for their opinions on several historic events. He then proceeded to connect those events to black history.
"We shouldn't celebrate July 4, 1776 as a holiday of freedom, because at that time, we were still enslaved," Jackson said. "We should instead replace it with July 4, 1863, the day of the Union's victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, and one of the first major steps towards racial equality."
Jackson ended his speech by recalling comments made by comedian Bill Cosby in May, when Cosby said that black people should stop blaming racial oppression for their troubles and instead strive to work harder.
"I applaud what Bill said, but there is fear that it will be interpreted out of context," Jackson said. "We do indeed face difficult odds, but we should keep working harder in order to make the playing field even, and allow ourselves the chance to succeed. Our enemy can change the words we say, but our only goal is to reach one-to-one odds, nothing else."
Students had much to say after listening to Jackson speak.
"The speech was very interesting," College senior Beau Guinyard said, "especially his drawing attention to the importance of music in civil rights. We at Penn are in a very strong position to break down these social barriers."
"Even though Penn is known as a progressive and liberal university," College sophomore Sarah Brown said, "there is still much we can learn from Jesse Jackson."
