Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Holden Leadership Symposium

Katie D.

February 16, 2010 - 8:52 PM

Yesterday I had the honor of attending the Holden Leadership Center's Annual Leadership Symposium. This is an event which celebrates UO student leaders, and provides them an opportunity to hear from important leaders at the UO and on the national level. Participants had to be nominated by a student group, and attended leadership workshops as well as a dinner and presentation. This year's honored guest was the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who spoke to us about contemporary issues of leadership in social justice and movements for change.

It was an inspirational crowd. I was present as a member of the Clark Honors College, and I met student leaders from campus groups as diverse as the Black Student Union, the Craft Center, Student Athletes, and the presidents of Fraternities and Sororities. We discussed the importance of student cohesion and our support for each other, as well as recognizing differences and questions of diversity.

Reverend Jesse Jackson's speech included issues from lingering questions of the Civil Rights Movement to challenges to our generation to act for change. He told us, "What makes America great is not that we are always right. What makes America great is that we have the ability to fight for what is." He also told us that "you cannot get drunk on yesterday's struggle. You all have work to do."

These messages spoke to me strongly as a student leader and activist, and as a member of a campus that works hard to be equally welcoming and diverse. His challenge to our community of campus leaders was an inspirational one. Jesse Jackson and his generation of young people changed the face of this country, and created the possibility of racial equality. All movements for social justice since then have been based on the work that they did. Last night was a deliberate call to work for just causes in the world, in the knowledge that student commitment in the past has created the world we live in today.

Jesse Jackson spoke to many contemporary issues here in Eugene and at the UO campus. He addressed the undeniable "whiteness" of our student body, and the need to reach out to minority students. He decried the presence of the Pacifica Forum here, and encouraged student effort to stand together and support one another in the face of hate speech and intimidation. He also specifically addressed the need to recruit African American students who were more than athletes, who were also peers and students. The UO has made a serious effort to recruit more students of color, but, as Reverend Jackson told us, "it ain't too black up in here." The underrepresentation of minorities in higher education continues to be a major stumbling block in national questions of equality. He told us that "we, the people, are free but not equal."

In my studies of sociology, I have read a wide variety of texts dealing with the inequalities between people of different races and socioeconomic classes. Many of these issues revolve around questions of education and the quality of schools available in inner cities vs the schools in suburban areas. This stems not only from parents' economic status, but also a continuing segregation of schools that happens through red lining and unequal investments in different school districts. By the time students enroll in college, there are often extreme inequalities in their levels of reading and problem-solving. All too often, this means that minority students are not able to attend any higher education institutions, and quality college education is not an option.

At this celebration of UO student leaders, it was obvious to me that people are looking for change, and are hoping to create an environment of increased equality and welcome. There are initiatives to make Oregon schools more accessible to first-generation college attenders and students with financial need. Pathways Oregon is one such initiative, which provides a specific Oregon population with a free college education.

As the policies and realities of economics and education have shifted, there has been an increasing need to support universities through private donations and student tuition. I am impressed, therefore, that the University continues to have a strong commitment to the mission of a public university: to provide high-quality education to all Oregonians, regardless of personal history. I am also encouraged that, as individuals contribute to the UO, they are donating to scholarship funds that allow students to step beyond their expected boundaries.

I hope that Jesse Jackson's encouragement to recruit more students of color is recognized and enacted at the UO. I also hope that, as efforts are increased, the academic merits of prospective students are emphasized beyond those of sports.

The Leadership Symposium was such an inspiration because of the sheer number of students who serve as leaders on our campus. We are part of a dynamic group of people who have made their college experiences into something larger than academics alone: we are applying what we have learned in the classroom to the larger world and larger questions of life, from activity in a certain small community to goals that encompass athletic achievement to global social justice movements. Leaders like Jesse Jackson speak to our potential as students and individuals, to young adults working to create change of one kind or another in the world. This is what makes the UO community such a wonderful place to live in: that we create our own communities, that we work together as leaders and peers, and that we care deeply about the social realities which surround us.