Monday, September 25, 2000

Jackson preaches voter responsibility

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Swings by Tristate to stump for Gore

By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Jesse Jackson brought his campaign to register African-Americans for the Nov. 7 election to an Avondale church Sunday morning, where he pleaded with churchgoers to “use your power.”

        “Just as God gave David the slingshot, He gave you the vote,” the civil rights activist and former Democratic presidential contender told a sanctuary full of enthusiastic listeners at New Friendship Baptist Church on Reading Road.

        Mr. Jackson's impromptu preaching at New Friendship, and an earlier appearance at a breakfast for black clergy and Democratic political leaders at In
tegrity Hall in Bond Hill, were the first events in a two-day Ohio bus ride aimed at registering and motivating African-Americans to support the Democratic presidential ticket of Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman.

        The Jackson bus tour — which included a stop at Central State University in Wilberforce Sunday and stops in

        Columbus, Akron and Youngstown today — is part of an Ohio Democratic party effort to drive up voter turnout among key Democratic voter groups so the Gore-Lieberman ticket can take Ohio's 21 electoral votes Nov. 7.

        African-Americans have been the most loyal of the Democratic Party's key voter groups. In the most recent Ohio Poll, sponsoredby the University of Cincinnati, Mr. Gore had 78 percent of the African-American vote in Ohio, while GOP nominee George W. Bush had only 14 percent.

        At both New Friendship Baptist and Integrity Hall Sunday, the Rev. Mr. Jackson talked about the power the poor in urban and rural areas — white and black — could have if they registered and voted.

        Ohio, he said, has 860,000 African-Americans of voting age and only 488,000 are registered to vote — about 100,000 of them in southwest Ohio.

        “We could be a mighty force,” said Mr. Jackson, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

        African-American voters usually turn out for national elections in smaller numbers proportionate to other demographic groups.

        Four years ago in Hamilton County, turnout for the presidential race was 71 percent county-wide, but only 59 in predominantly African—American areas of the county.

        At New Friendship, Rev. Jack son looked out over about 250 worshipers gathered for Sunday services and asked all who were not registered to vote to stand.

        “Don't lie now; you're in the house of God,” Rev. Jackson said.

        Only one man stood up. Then, Rev. Jackson asked all the registered voters in the church to “raise your hands towards heaven. Don't lie about it in God's House. Say, "If I'm lying, Lord, let me drive home today on Firestone tires.'”

        Rev. Jackson said he saw no problem with advocating the election of Mr. Gore in church, “because people of faith must speak. Moses wasn't fighting abstractions. He was fighting Pharaoh. He was fighting a public policy fight. So are we.”

        Steve Reece, the owner of Integrity Hall who was part of the inner circle in Rev. Jackson's presidential campaigns, said local leaders will take the message he spread Sunday morning in Cincinnati and put it into action.

        “In Cincinnati, we're going to focus on young people,” Mr. Reece said. “We're going to the gyms where they play ball, to the schools, to the places young people hang out; and try to get the message through that there is something in it for them to vote.

        “You can't tell young people to do it because it's their civic duty,” Mr. Reece said. “You've got to make them understand that it matters to them. That's what we're going to try to do.”

       

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