Admired by the left and disliked by the right, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has been an outspoken force in American politics and civil rights activism for five decades.

As a young man, he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King. In 1971, Jackson created Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) to address economic and social inequality. He ran twice as a Democratic candidate president in the 1980s. In 1996, Operation PUSH merged with the Rainbow Coalition to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which he currently leads.

In a recent phone interview with Ideas writer Marshall Sloane, Jackson discussed the rising racial tensions in America as well his views about President Obama’s legacy. Below is an edited excerpt of the conversation.

SLOANE: Why does America have rising racial tension in cities such as Milwaukee and Baltimore?

JACKSON: Well, just as slavery was not limited to the South, neither was Jim Crow. What you have in Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Flint are patterns of racial stratification and segregation. The racial gap was once a horizontal gap. There was a racial and recourse separation. Now, African Americans can go to the ball game with white people and pull for a common team, so racial segregation as a form of humiliation and barbarism is down . . . [But] in every one of these cities, whether it is Milwaukee or Chicago, there are abandoned zones. These neighborhoods look like war zones with boarded-up buildings and countless closed stores. In each case, there are many more jobs available if we were committed to reconstruction as opposed to military imperialism.

SLOANE: How would America create this reconstruction plan?

JACKSON: The diversion of resources to Iraq, Libya, and Syria has defined our time. We also have a massive problem with offshore tax havens. Between military expenditures for the wrong war and offshore tax havens, the resources are being dried up for reconstruction. That is the heart of our crisis: We lack the resources for reconstruction. President Obama proposed a plan that would address the lack of recourses. He wanted to cut down the easy access to guns, put in place a transportation system that can connect people to jobs, give people health care so they can work, and produce a steady growth of jobs. If President Obama’s plan was followed, we would not have a Milwaukee or Baltimore as we know it today. The price that we pay for ignoring visionaries of substance is very expensive, and the vision that President Obama has offered us is facing a violent headwind.

SLOANE: What has stopped President Obama’s dream from being achieved?

JACKSON: There were deliberate plans to . . . discredit and destroy President Obama. Republicans met in Washington on the night of the inauguration and talked about how they could destroy him. As opposed to being motivated by policy and political facts, many Republicans were strictly ideological. For example, the South is the poorest region in the country, with massive inequality, yet many of those Southern states, besides Louisiana and Arkansas, turned down Medicaid [expansion under the Affordable Care Act].

In each instance, these states turned down an opportunity to provide healthcare for the poorest people. Another thing President Obama did that people should be impressed by is put forth a plan for transportation that would connect rural, suburban, and urban people. The plan would employ Americans in laying the rail, making the steel, and building the trains. The Governor of Wisconsin rejected the plan. The deep unemployment and segregation in Milwaukee could have been dispersed by improving transportation. We are paying a big price for that mean-spirited and divisive ideology.

SLOANE: What has caused the partisanship that you believe is stopping progress?

JACKSON: After the civil rights bill of 1964, [Southern] Democrats switched to being Goldwater and Reagan Republicans. I used to wonder why these politicians were so slow to tear down these walls. Well, they did not come down because some people profited from them. After all, the dream of Dr. King and President Lincoln was to pull the wall down, but you still have some fighting to keep that wall up because as long as the wall is up those who control it can dominate politics and the economy. Donald Trump is an offspring of that movement that used fear as a commodity that can be sold and manipulated.

SLOANE: How has Donald Trump leveraged the movement to “keep the walls up”?

JACKSON: Trump pleases the worst fears for those that long for an America that must never come back. The size of Trump’s wave is frightening. It is not just his point of view. The fear and resentment is deep and widespread. The Republican Party stands with him. Each of the 18 candidates said that the first thing they would do would be eliminate the Affordable Care Act. When you become so blind that you cannot see what’s positive, the danger grows.

SLOANE: What do you think President Obama’s legacy will be?

JACKSON: There are several levels. First, he made us better off economically. While there is unfinished business, the lack of progress is because of resistance against President Obama’s dream. His family dignity has also set a standard. Michelle Obama’s pursuing healthcare, education, and fitness for children demonstrates her strong values. His accomplishment as an activist, scholar, and change agent will last for a long time. Ultimately, he is the heir to the martyrs that participated in the civil rights movement. They would all be proud of what he has done against the odds of mean-spirited resistance. The good news is that President Obama shows how the light will always outshine the darkness. Keep hope alive.

Source: bostonglobe.com

Date Posted: Monday, August 22nd, 2016 , Total Page Views: 2472