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April 11, 2006
The Rev. Jackson Urges Blacks to Be More Vocal on Immigration
Posted at April 11, 2006 10:43 AM in Human Rights .
By Peter Ortiz
© 2006 DiversityInc.com®
April 11, 2006
Latinos propelled the immigration debate to a new level Monday and may pave the way for a new human-rights struggle that isn't limited to ethnicity or race.
"The movement is bigger than Latinos and should be embraced as a legitimate civil-rights issue," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told DiversityInc. "It's a great moment to be a coalition."
More than a million immigrants and their supporters converged across the nation Sunday and Monday in what has been mostly defined as a Latino issue by the mainstream media. Latinos have taken the lead on humane immigration reform but also have created an opportunity to broaden the umbrella with other groups, including Asian, African and Caribbean immigrants.
Jackson sees parallels with the black Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and the push today for immigrant rights. He also said that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would embrace today's immigrant-rights movement and that black leadership needs to be more vocal on the issue.
Just as black Americans refused to live as second-class citizens during the civil-rights struggle, undocumented immigrants are refusing to remain silent as anti-immigrant forces vilify them as "illegals" while they toil for low wages. Instead of fighting over low-wage jobs, blacks and immigrants should unite to push for living wages in the United States and for better economic conditions globally that allow immigrants to find better opportunities in their home countries, Jackson says.
Other black leaders see an opportunity for young blacks and Latinos to form a coalition that will define the civil-rights struggle for their generation. Joe Leonard urges young black Americans to follow the example of older black pioneers who ushered the Civil Rights Movement.
Leonard, executive director of the Black Leadership Forum, a confederation of 28 black civil, political and service organizations, attended a pro-immigration event in Phoenix Monday. He also warns that blacks need to reject the divisive elements, such as blaming undocumented immigrants, many Latino, for taking jobs and depressing wages. The people who at one time would deny blacks their rights often are the same people who are fervently attacking Latino immigrants.
"African Americans are no better than our former oppressors if we are in opposition to immigration reform," Leonard says.
Blacks would be as "exclusionary as every other group that has excluded us" if they did not join Latinos and other immigrants in their struggle for humane reform, Leonard says. What he find especially disturbing is watching "neo-conservatives" join with some blacks to vilify Latino immigrants and create dissension between the two groups.
"I believe African Americans should not be on the wrong side of history," Leonard says. "How is the former oppressor going to tell us to oppress somebody else?"
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