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Jesse Jackson Thrills Toledo Audience
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
The Rev. Jesse Jackson,
civil rights icon, former presidential candidate and one of
the great orators of the past half century, came to Toledo
last week to show his support for the General Motors
employees who have been the targets of racial harassment.
“Cowards must be found,”
he said of those GM workers who are hanging nooses and
scribbling racial messages while concealing their identities
and avoiding punitive measures.
Jackson spoke with an
audience of about 80 people, including GM employees, elected
officials and local ministers during his two-hour stay in
the Glass City – a reaction to the GM situation that has
garnered attention in the national media. He drove down to
Toledo from Detroit where he had spent the previous day
participating in MLK Day activities.
Using his trademark
technique of urging his audience to repeat his phrases,
Jackson held his listeners’ attention and involvement as he
replied to those who voiced their grievances about
harassment incidents they had experienced at local GM, Jeep
and UPS worksites.
Given the fact that such
incidents at the GM Powertrain plant have gone undetected,
Jackson suggested that properly placed cameras might be a
solution to the problem. It was a refrain that met with some
resistance among his listeners, but a solution he felt was
worth trying in various places in the work site.
Jackson’s primary
suggestion, however, was that Toledoans should hold a mass
meeting to emphasize the citizens’ commitment to civility.
“We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters,” he
said. “Not apart as fools.”
Jackson also noted that
the incidents in question were indeed the actions of
individuals out of control, not the result of corporate or
organizational lack of concern. “We’re dealing with cowards
not policy, per se,” he said, noting the historic
involvement of both General Motors and the United Auto
Workers (UAW) in the civil rights movement. He cited the
example of Walter Reuther, the labor leader who built the
UAW into a powerful union force, who was a constant presence
with Jackson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the
civil rights marches of the 1960’s.
Ray Wood, the president of
the Toledo NAACP and the former president of the UAW unit at
the Powertrain facility, spent time with Jackson bringing
him up to speed on the situation at GM and the lawsuits that
are now active – Wood has filed one suit, another has been
filed by nine other employees – both accusing management of
ignoring and enabling the harassment.
Wood agreed with Jackson
about GM’s policy on the national level but voiced his
concern that local plant management and union officials are
not so bound by corporate policy.
“The problem is when it
filters down to the local level, their autonomy is a
problem,” he explained.
Jackson held fast to his
theory that cameras were a solution to a number of such
problems, citing the example of body and car cameras
employed by numerous police departments and the impact they
have had in uncovering the truth about incidents that have
turned violent. While not all of the crowd greed with
Jackson on this possible solution to the problem, he
nevertheless had already gained the respect of virtually
everyone in the audience by virtue of his lifelong struggle
to civil rights and improving the condition of people of
color in America and around the world.
Jackson also observed that
a relatively few individuals can mislead and thwart the good
intentions of a multitude. One blind man, he said, can lead
a hundred sighted souls to destruction.
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