Rev. Jesse Jackson: GOP trying to return to racist past

The Rev. Jesse Jackson invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s hopes for a new South, urging a packed hall Monday night in Charleston to fight Republican-led voter ID and immigration laws that he says hearken back to the old South’s racist past.

More than 400 people crowded into the International Longshoremen’s Association Hall to see and hear Jackson, who at 70, remains the nation’s most famous civil rights activist.

In a rousing speech that was at once a history lesson and a rally cry, Jackson said King’s work helped the South grow while GOP “voter suppression schemes” are putting South Carolina on backward path.

“You couldn’t have Boeing behind the cotton curtain; you couldn’t have Michelin tires behind the cotton curtain,” he said. “When the walls came down, the South could grow. We are not going back to the old South.”

Jackson, born in Greenville, made numerous references to streets and towns in South Carolina, beginning with Atlantic Beach, a blacks-only beach during segregation.

Noting that Monday night’s GOP debate is in neighboring Myrtle Beach, Jackson said that Republicans were trying to “resurrect the rope” that kept blacks and whites apart.

Jackson’s call-and-response cadence soon had the audience repeating his appeal for an even playing field: “Whenever the rules are published and the goals are clear, and the referee is fair and the score is transparent, we can lead.”

But he said voter ID laws are reminiscent of past attempts to restrict black people and women from the polls, and the GOP is trying to send them to the Supreme Court — “the same court that gave George Bush the election.” Jackson ’s comments, however, neglected to take into account President Barack Obama’ s two appointees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the high court.

Jackson had strong words for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who rejected spending tens of millions of dollars in the state’s surplus on education and other programs. “We should be hiring police officers; we should be hiring firemen and teachers and building houses. This land is my land. This land is made for you and me!”

Jackson had even harsher words for the tea party, saying it was part of a “massive backlash after Obama won.”

Jackson said “this is not the Boston Tea Party,” which he said was designed to stop tyranny. He likened it to the Confederacy.

“The Fort Sumter Tea Party was willing to dissolve the union” in the name of state’s rights; he said today’s tea party is similarly divisive.

It’s not the first time Jackson has attacked the tea party. He did so last summer, prompting vigorous rebuttals from tea party officials, who called Jackson’s statements an attempt to use racism to hijack its messages of limited government.

Reach Tony Bartelme at 937-5554.