The Rainbow PUSH Coalition will celebrate Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 70th birthday on Saturday with a salute to him and re-launch of the former President Lyndon Johnson administration’s war on poverty.
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition will celebrate Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 70th birthday on Saturday with a salute to him and re-launch of the former President Lyndon Johnson administration’s war on poverty. The day will begin with an 8 a.m. breakfast meeting, followed by distribution of 500 food baskets.
“Poor people are invisible in our nation’s capital,” said Jackson, founder and president of the civil rights organization. “Republicans defend the affluent, calling them ‘job creators,’ Democrats champion the middle class and those boldest stand with ‘working families.’ The poor go without mention.”
Jackson, who also led Chicago’s Operation Breadbasket for the poor starting in the 1960s, said census data shows that 1 in 6 Americans, or 46 million people, live in poverty today.
“Poverty is rising across all races and all regions,” he said. “The Great Recession is the immediate cause. Twenty-five million people are in need of full-time work; 49 million go without health insurance. A good many of the poor have jobs, but receive too little pay to lift their family up from poverty. But poverty was rising even before the latest economic collapse; the middle class has been losing ground for more than 30 years.”
Copyright 2011 Chicago Defender
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