Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson Junior.
Speaker 2: Welcome forward to the Jesse Drackmons Junior Ship on La
Top fifteen eighty. We're just one day in from the
nast celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King Junior.
In this twoenty twenty six years it is.
Speaker 1: The birth of Jesus of Nazareth. His life was so
profound that it changed the course of human history and
divided time between BC and Anno Dominie. We are in
year two zero two six Anno dominie measured against the
time of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and particularly
his ministry, so critical and so important to the idea
of civilized behavior. Martin Luther King Junior a significant and
pivotal force, not only in the twentieth century, but a
man who lived for only thirty nine years. Yesterday we
commemorated nationally his birthday, having would have been ninety seven
years old. In this particular context, and of course it's
not without controversy, every president since the inauguration of the
holiday has issued a proclamation commemorating and celebrating the life
of Martin Luther King Junior, and Donald Trump almost missed it.
He would have been the first president to not sign
a proclamation honoring the life of Martin Luther King Junior.
He subsequently did so when it was brought to the attention.
I'm assuming through the media of his of his presidency
to not sign a proclamation, but he did. Late last night,
before the holiday officially ended, he signed the proclamation honoring
the life of Martin Luther King Junior. I think it's
fascinating in and of itself that the people around the
President of the United States do not have the President
of the United States prepared for a national and international
gaff quite like the one that took place yesterday. But
it says a lot about the spirit energy of the
President of the United States, and it says even more
about the time that we find ourselves in. Our very
special guest today is Wendell L. Griffin, an Arkansas lawyer, jurist,
legal educator, business leader, ordained Baptist minister, and public speaker.
On April fifteenth, nineteen eighty five, Governor Bill Clinton appointed
him Chairman of the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission, making Griffin
the first person of color named to that state agency
and the first to chair it. Griffin served in that
position until February second, nineteen eighty seven, when he returned
to his law practice with Wright Lindsay and Jennings. Governor
Jim Guy Tucker appointed Judge Griffin to the Court of
Appeals at the end of nineteen ninety five, and he
entered the judicial service in nineteen ninety six. While on
the Cour of Appeals, Griffin also remained active in professional,
civic and religious life, including service as president of the
Pulaski County Bar Association, pastor of Emmanual Baptist Church of
Little Rock, Arkansas, and parliamentarian of the National Baptist Convention USA.
He is the author of two books, The Fierce Urgency
of Prophetic Hope and Parables Politics and Prophetic Faith. Judge Griffin,
Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
Speaker 3: Congressman Jackson, it is good to be with you again,
and Happy New Year to you. Happy day after the
King Holiday. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful and honored, deeply honored by your presence
on our show, and I can't think of a more
appropriate guest to help contextualize what we are going through
in the Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope. Lord knows we
need prophetic hope at this hour. Clearly you were inspired
to really write, create, and think through a masterpiece. We
have about three minutes before we come forward, which means
the first break in our show. Will you share with
us during this time period, why the nation, why the country,
maybe even the world needs a prophetic hope at this hour?
Speaker 3: We are in a time where hope seems to be
almost difficult for people to imagine. People are dealing with
trauma on so many levels. In the United States, we
see the modern version of the twenty first entry version
of the KKK operating in IC. We see Washington, d C.
Threatening to invade Greenland, already having invaded Venezuela, threatening to
invade other countries. We see the ongoing genocide in Sudan,
in the Congo, in Gaza, we see all kinds of trauma,
and people are finding difficult to believe in the notion
of hope. So the issue of hope is almost People
are almost breathless for it at the same time desperate
for it.
Speaker 1: You know, Judge, I had the privilege yesterday of speaking
in Walking Hegan, Illinois, and I spoke from the subject matter.
April fourth, nineteen sixty seven, when Doctor King delivered a
speech that quite frankly changed his ministry. It changed his
relationship to the Baptist Convention. Joseph Jackson, the pastor and
leader of that convention at that time, even changed the
entrance to his church from Kings to thirty first Streets.
So I know you understand that the context, Doctor King,
I was told by my father, I believe, was to
speak at one of the conventions and a pastor a
shuffle began on the stage at the Baptist Convention. A
pastor was knocked off the stage, broke his neck and died. Literally,
a fight broke out. Doctor King was an immensely unpopular
man at that time and during that period. But in
that Beyond Vietnam Vietnam speech, I chose yesterday as my
subject matter beyond Venezuela. Beyond Venezuela. He spoke about Venezuela
in the same speech, bringing an urgent currency to this
to this moment, Judge Griffin.
Speaker 3: He spoke about it. It was prescient. And I'm glad
you named your speech beyond Venezuela because and we can
talk about after the break. Because April four, nineteen sixty seven,
is perhaps the most prelevant, relevant speech that King ever delivered.
For our time. We need to talk about that in
detail because too many people are courting sixty three. We
need to be courting sixty seven.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. You're listening to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show. We're going to have an exciting program in
this first hour with Judge Wendell Griffin, Arkansas lawyer, jurist,
legal educator, business leader, ordained Baptist minister and public speaker.
Particularly honored that he's.
Speaker 3: On our show.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. More on k BAA Talk fifteen eighty. Hey,
I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. Welcome forward to the show. Our
very special guest is none other than Reverend doctor Wendell
Griffin and Arkansas lawyer, jurist, legal educator, business leader, ordained
Baptist minister and public speaker. And just before the break
before we came forward, Judge Griffin and I were having
a conversation about how immensely unpopular Martin Luther King Junior was.
On April fourth, nineteen sixty seven, he was thirty nine
thirty nine, almost thirty eight years old, almost thirty nine
years old. He'd be shot and killed a year from
the delivery of this speech. But this year was a
year of great depression for Martin Luther King Junior. He
had received the Nobel Peace Prize. He had delivered in
nineteen sixty three a memorable speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
But there's a fight breaking out between Baptist preachers and
young people he talks about it in the speech, who
were disagreeing with a generation of people were saying the
Doctor King's tactics were not working. And I can't think
of anyone more important in this hour to share with
us the context of the fierce urgency of prophetic hope
and the prophetic hope admission that Doctor King was on
at that hour, Judge Griffin.
Speaker 3: We forget. I like to remind people who have Doctor
King's picture in their church and church studies that oftentimes
the people have the Doctor King's picture in their church
studies when predecessor passors out of congregation wouldn't have had
Doctor King in their town along in their pulpit. And
so we need to remember that Doctor King was ousted
from the National Baptist Convention USA Incorporated. As you mentioned,
he was let he was thrown out of the home
of his father and his grandfathers on both sides, and
he literally was without a denominational home until the progess
of National Baptist Convention was organized. He and Gardner Taylor
were thrown out. I say that because Doctor King called
this nation to account for its racism, for its militarism,
and for its gangs to capitalists. We call it gangs
to capitalism now our word what he called it crass materialism.
We realize now too late, that doctor King was more
than a civil rights leader. He was a prophet. He
was a preacher, as you mentioned, and he spoke prophetic truths,
and he was killed because his truth cut too deep
and too close to the real, very own wrongs of
this society. We are now, We are now in wars
in this country, and not the King begged this nation
to end his military involvement in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, Judge, when I reflect upon that
in my own studies over the last couple of months,
in preparation for this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
this young nation July fourth, twenty twenty six, we will
be celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence. Doctor King stands out as this prophetic
voice raising questions about this new civilization that has entered
the global sphere of contemplation. Not only a young nation,
but it emerges as the most powerful nation, the most
influential nation, against the backdrop of human civilization with significant
unfinished work in front of us. They talked about the
value system, the value system of putting people over politics,
of putting people over things. We needed to move quickly,
he said, from a thing oriented society to a to
a oriented society. Doc, we have a clip right here
that I'd like to play. We are living in a
moral crisis, not symbolic, but so deep. Our humanity is
at stake. There is a battle going on between good
and evil, and the fear creature of this nation and
the world house hangs in the balance. That was Bernice King,
Reverend doctor Bernice King, speaking just yesterday at Ebenezer Baptist Church,
Doctor Griffin, your thoughts.
Speaker 3: She speaks not only the truth her father spokes, but
she speaks the truth that we know. Our children, our
young people, are speaking it. They We're hearing it all
across this country across the world. It is as real
as the murder of people who are murdered or killed
by ice in confinement, but also the killing of Nicole
Good Rene Good in Minneapolis. It is the murder of
people who are literally killed because of their ancestry or
because of their perceived ancestry. Because ice people are killing
icees are killing folks and detaining folks based on appearance.
They're profiling people, and being racially profiled now is a
capital offense. We are seeing doctor King's concern about not
being a people, a personal in society, as he said
so clearly on April four, nineteen sixty seven, to being
a thing or in society where we are more concerned
about cryptocurrency than the currency of human beings in communication
with each other and in solidarity with each other. And
so we have this very big dichotomy, as Bernice King mentioned,
where literally we our souls are being split apart.
Speaker 1: I want to pick up on that because you know,
I've heard thousands of sermons have been delivered about the
fierce urgency of now. Rarely does anyone refer to in
those sermons beyond Vietnam speech and or bring the connection
to beyond Venezuela a time to speak. But really, doctor
King's challenge is not only to the US government. What
makes him unpopular is that his challenge is to each
and every one of us. And by that I mean
when he says a thing oriented society. I tried to
break it down this way. We all want bananas, but
we don't want to have anything to do with Panamanian
neighbors or Costa Rican neighbors. We don't have anything to
do with people living next door to us who actually
come from lands that grow bananas. We all want lower
gas prices, but we're ignoring the Venezuelan and the immigrants
and the crisis that they're going through in their own country,
the people who stand on the largest oil reserves in
the nation. We wake up in the morning we hear
the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which in nineteen fifty four,
when Brown versus the Board of Education was decided. If
you google it, the Dow Jones Industrial average was at
four hundred and four. Right the power of Doctor King's death.
In nineteen sixty eight, the Dow Jones Industrial average, the
industrial average, the measure of the American economy, was one
thousand at the beginning of the Reagan administration, the Dow
Jones Industrial average was at seven thousand. At the end
of the Barack Obama administration, the Dow Jones Industrial average
was at nineteen thousand. It closed last Friday at forty
nine thousand. And yet there is so much misery in
the land. People are not getting their snap benefits. There's
a great debate in this nation about health care, about housing,
about affordability, about quality of life. And then I reflected
upon in my remarks that what happens in this AI
and robotic, profit driven economy for more and more efficiencies.
When Dow Jones is at sixty thousand and at eighty thousand,
there is a tipping point when the economy itself no
longer needs the American people because it becomes so efficient
that it doesn't take care of the least of these.
Speaker 3: I think you have tesched on what doctor King talked about.
You recall quite well that doctor King said that at
some point, at some point, a nation that has a
true evvulution of values will have to regalize that when
his words, when machines and computers, profit motives, and property
rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets
of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
End quote. We not only have not conquered them, we
have multiplied them. What you refer to in the adult
Jones indjustment edge has been an exponential increase in the
taw couple with an exponential increase in the misery that
our people are suffering. So we have exponential increase in
supposed wealth and exponential increase interposed hurt, and we cannot
recognize that the wealth is going to a smaller and
smaller number of people, and the hurt is expanded to
a larger and wider and deeper the freedom so much
so that like a virus or a cancer, we are
becoming incapable of dealing with the problems. Our problems are
now self made and multiplied. The triplets are now our couplets.
Speaker 1: And we wake up every morning, we read the stock market,
we look at our iras, we ask ourselves the question,
how are we doing? Is the economy better off today
four years than it was four years ago? And we
keep going down this same road to the point doctor
King suggests at the end of the speech that we
are looking at either nonviolent coexistence or absolute annihilation of
the idea of the species and the idea of civilization.
Very powerful and unpopular words for someone who peeped the
direction of our economy, who peeped the direction of our politics.
And if you add to that the influence that the
Constitution should have on directing the economy to humane priorities
for the American people, you're right. It is simply suggestive
of the fact that this is a system that is
moving in a direction that needs more and more oil,
more and more critical minerals, more and more reserves in
order to consume and meet the needs of each of
us who wakes up in the morning concerning concerned about ourselves,
concerned about our homes, and concerned about our bottom lines.
That the collective is completely lost.
Speaker 3: The line that doctor King said that haunts me to
this day, to this day, this is nineteen sixty seven
he gave it. We're in twenty twenty six, so we're
literally almost fifty years away. And he said, a nation
that continues year after year to spend more money on
military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death. I wrote in The Fierce urgency of prophetic hope,
that we've continued to go over and over and over
our budgets in military defense and instead of social uplift
year after year. Sooner or later, people who caught spiritual
death find a way to kill themselves, and our society
has found a way to commit national suicide of our souls,
but also of our democracy. We're seeing the democracy imperiled,
we're seeing our character imperiled, and we're seeing our sense
of humanity imperial. The world now is aghast at the
nation that has so much hubris. It does not realize
how horrible it is.
Speaker 1: Doc we only have about a minute and a half
before we come forward. If you had to preach the
eulogy of our system, what would it sound like.
Speaker 3: It would sound like the nation that forgot its profit.
We have learned the wrong lessons from the wrong profits.
We've learned the lessons from the profits of greed, of racism,
of bigotry, and we have not learned the lessons from
the prophet of love, justice and democracy. And when you
forget the nations of your lessons, of your prophets, you
commit the sins of your ancestors. We're doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. You're listening to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show. Our very special guest in this hour is
Judge Wendell Griffin and Arkansas lawyer juris legal educator. In
nineteen eighty five, appointed by Governor Bill Clinton to chair
the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission, making Griffin the first person
of color name to that state agency and the first
to chair it. We're having an honest conversation about the
destiny of the United States. We've heard a brief eulogy
of what it represents. There may be a way, there
may be a way to amend our way out of
this problem. The right to healthcare of equal high quality
as a constitutional right and a new government priority. The
right to a clean, safe, and sustainable bull environment, and
the right to an education of equal high quality. And
God knows we need the constitutional right to vote. I'm
Jesse Jackson Junior. More, but Judge Griffin and when come
forward on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior.
Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Judge Wendell Griffin.
This is his second appearance on the Jesse Jackson Junior show.
I'm trying to find room on our schedule to make
him a regular contributor to the show. I'm so great
he's he's spending this quality, immerseful time with us on
the spirit energy of what's taking place in our nation.
Judge Griffin, welcome forward to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, and I thank you Congressmond Jackson
for being the wonderfully tenacious host that you are and
keeping it real because you have not chosen to give
up the legacy of justice in favor of let me
put it this way, in favor of the creed of
the day, which is get man, and don't forget Aboutny
don't think of anybody else, you know, you think about
all of us. Thank you, Judge.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you very much, you know I am. I'm
after having studied for the last month or so in
preparation for this hour beyond Vietnam speech. I think I'm
as depressed at this moment as I've been in a
very long time. I share Doctor King's depression that there
is something profoundly wrong in our society. There's something profoundly
wrong with our system. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence
have guided the nation, albeit through its most difficult and
continuingly difficult periods. And I'm wondering if also in the
Constitution is the possibility of our nation's salvation. In two
thousand and one, I wrote about this in my book
A More Perfect Union. I advanced nine new individual rights
to be added to the Constitution that literally would direct
capitalism to new opportunities. If the first amendment is responsible
for ABC, NBCCBS, the Internet, cell phones and billboards, newspapers,
and all of the outdoor advertising, and literally the millions
of jobs that are created from the idea of free speech,
then a carefully worded amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, gearing teeing every American the right to healthcare
of equal high quality could also be responsible for the
creation the construction of hundreds, if not thousands, of hospitals
in urban areas and rural areas. It could create tens
of thousands, hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses and
share in a value to create a society where we
have the longest longevity as people by making sure people
can live and they can thrive. That the same constitution
could build public schools of equal high quality. Knowing no disparities,
and therefore the pool of athletes, for example, would be
so great when we see an NFL game or a
baseball game, when all of these schools have coaches and
teachers of equal high quality and fields and children during
the formative years of their lives are exposed to the
great opportunities that are America, we would have a huge
pool to choose from to determine who plays for the
Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers, the LA Rams. We
would change the nature of us working together again, guided
by the Constitution of the United States. I'm going to
close on this quick point. Tavis Smiley once shared with
me that he was at a forum for Michael Milkin
and Michael Milkin Foundation, and the question was raised after
they had met for several days with hundreds of people
to discuss the best education ideas. And mister Milkin pulled
all of the people into a big auditorium and he said, listen,
I've heard everyone's idea, but is there anyone in here
who has a grand idea that would solve all things
for us? And Tavis said the quiet in the room
was ominous. No one raised his hand. He said, he
thought for a moment, Let me try some of this,
Jesse Jr.
Speaker 3: Let me Jesse.
Speaker 1: Tavis raised his hand and he said, and then he
looked around. Michael Milkin looked around and said, well, Tavis,
what's your great idea? He said, what if we amended
the Constitution and all Americans enjoyed the right to a
public education of equal high quality, setting in motion the
construction of tens of thousands of new, highly competitive public
schools across our country, putting people to work. He said,
The entire room was quiet, It was ominous for everyone
for that moment had an insight in what was possible.
But of course the difficulty of mending the Constitution makes
it even more difficult. In other words, towards doctor King's
Better Society and World House Judge.
Speaker 3: We are not accidentally dysfunctional. We are systematically dysfunctional. And
your suggestion of a men in the Constitution points to
that we could if we would, if we had the
moral will, if we had the courage, if we had
the moral Canada, we could do exactly what you suggest
we could produce. We could amend the Constitution so that
we would value education and liberation over incarceration. We could
value not only the performing art in athletics, but also
the performing arts in drama and theater. We met value.
We could value science, the conation that produce, that produces
the wonderful rappers. Still that also produce Dinah Washington and
Duke Ellington and we But if our schools, those schools
had music programs in them, were teachers who were inspiring
young people. August Wilson's plays could be performed, but also
knew August Wilson's could be producing and writing and imagining.
This comes out of schools. You don't get this out
of AI. You don't get this out of a data center.
Speaker 4: You know you're preaching right now, Reverend, let me tell you,
I'm thinking in this moment that the prophetic vision of
the nation the doctor King was struggling with, which was
spot on in.
Speaker 1: The nineteen sixty seven April fourth Speech, is also challenged
by the fact that people could not hear him that
people were losing faith in America itself. Judge, you've sworn
to uphold the Constitution on many different occasions. Your thought
about the loyalty oath to making the nation better.
Speaker 3: The oath is not the problem. It is the oath
taker no oath is any better than the person who
takes it. People can swear to do something, but their
oath is no good if their character is deceitful, if
they are hypocrites, if they are ruthless. Then the oath
to protect and preserve the constitution, to look out for
the least of these and the vulnerable is no good
because they will, in their ruthlessness, run over the people
they're sworn to protect and to serve. So I'm not
concerned about the loyalty oath itself. I'm concerned about the
fidelity of people, the faithfulness of people, and I am concerned.
Let me just simply say it about the gullibility of
an electorate that knowing people who have lived their careers
in ruthlessness and greed and self centeredness, would believe that
they would somehow become honest, generous, and hospitable because we
elect them to the highest office in power. People who
are corrupt when given power, use their power in more
corrupt ways. Smart liars lie smarter, They don't become more truthful.
Speaker 1: I just want to add before we come forward. When
such a constitutional right is added to the Constitution, it
means that three hundred and fifty million Americans have the
legal right to take your local jurisdiction, your state, including
the federal government, to court to demand the change through
the legal system that the constitution forces. If in fact
it is not in the constitution, we don't have that right.
That is deeply troubling at this hour of the American experiment.
It is deeply troubling at democracies around the world who've
copied our constitution and in copying our constitution, whether it
is in Africa or South America, these constitutions that model
themselves after our own do not reflect the human values
that we are still fighting for within our own country.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Listening to Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
More when we come forward with Judge Wendell Griffin. Right
after this message, I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. Welcome forward to
the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. And just before we continue
our discussion with Judge Griffin, I want Judge Griffin to
know that at the top three minutes of the show,
I always leave it for a word of hope from
our very special guest, and I have to prepare you
for the idea that after our brief conversation. There will
be three minutes at the top of the show for
your word of hope. I want to think in a
very special way. In the last week, Kamala Harris has
visited my father's bedside. We Wonder has also visited my
father's bedside, and I'm grateful that I see a picture
that our producer Gina Towns has put up of gil
Scott Heron, Stevie Wonder, Reverend Jackson and Gladys Knight and
some of the earlier times that they all spend together,
and I wanted to thank them for those visits. Judge,
I want to ask this this final question and leave
some room for your thoughts. In your book Parables, Politics
and Prophetic Faith, you draw the with I might add
Alan Aubrey Bozak, written also with Judge Wendell Griffin. Judge
Reverend Bozak is, as everyone knows, a champion of ending
the apartheid regime in South Africa. You make this connection
between our politics, the parables themselves, and the prophetic nature
of our faith. Help restore our faith and our energy
as we move forward during these very difficult and challenging times.
Speaker 3: We do not choose the time in which we live.
We choose the conduct we use in those times, and
part of that choice involves choosing whether to have life
with a kind of as doctor King said, fierce hope,
a hope that is that transcends our situations. I like
to remind us that the African American national anthem lift
every voice and sing ends with a reminder that we
have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come through bad times, or as one of
our wonderful artists, that life for me ain't been no
crystal chair. Ah. We have come through the and every
generation has a moment that we have to declare ourselves
who we are. Are we people of desperation or inspiration?
Are we people of frustration, of ferocity, ferocious ferocious hope?
Are we people who are determined to overcome? Are we
people who are simply going to be confined to our
sense of misery because of the difficulty we face? Those
choices are ours, But we are come from a people
who are inspired by a faith that is bigger than
the situations of our time. Our struggle is defined by
our faith and our hope. And I have I got
to be a preacher come on, I've got to say
that trouble has never been God for us. Injustice has
never been God for us. In humanity has never been
God for us. We know who our God is, we
know on what we stand, and we know that just
as we have known that Hitler was not God in
the twenty in the nineteen, in the nineteen hundreds, Trump
is not God in the twenty first century, injustice is
not God anytime. We have to remember that the justice
in our life is depend upon the God of our lives,
the Biji God. And that is what your father inspired
in you and your siblings. That is what doctor King demonstrated.
That is what we have to pass on the business generation.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be two words of hope, because that's the
first one I'm thinking in this moment that Doctor King
also talked about how often the policymakers and the liberal
thinkers always come with the policy prescriptions, but their policies
prescriptions are not necessarily tied to the parables or tied
to the prophetic faith. They are great on paper, stand
for this program, stand for that program, but what propels
them through time is their faith. You wove that together
in parables, politics and prophetic faith suggesting that it is
okay to engage the present hour. Woe, may all our
powers be engaged to do the Master's will. Judge Wendell Griffin.
A final thought, a word of hope. You got a
few more minutes this time to take you time and
take us to that place.
Speaker 3: I am seventy three years old, like your father, I'm
part of the like your parents, I'm part of the
last generation of Africans Americans who lived and have first
hand knowledge of Jim Crow. Separate bathrooms and water fountains
that didn't work, schools that didn't have the right books.
I went through the whole ninth grade without an algebra book.
How do you learn algebra two if you don't have
an algebra for Algerie one? And my parents were laborers
and they've paid the same taxes the white people did.
But the white parents had children with algeerie books and
teachers who didn't have better education, because our black teachers
often had master's degrees and the white teachers only had
bachelors degrees. But the white teachers got better facilities. But
our parents sent us to schools with an inspiration. You
are not less than your God has put you here
for a purpose, and you are being prepared for a
future that is bigger than this predicament. I still remember
seeing the images of doctor King. I still remember seeing
images of your father. I still remember hearing the voices.
Not only have those televised, but those old saints of
Pike County, Arkansas and Harrison Chapel Baptist Church who picked
cotton in the fall so we could have some money
to have. And when I went to college, told me
to come to church and they would give me a
piece of money. That's what they called it, a piece
of money, so I could go back to school. They
didn't know what I was studying, but they believed in us.
I say all that to say that our people, and
I'm talking about black people. Our people have lived the
parable of the scriptures of people who were faced with
trials and left trials and triumphed, transscended trials and made triumph.
Made them triumphant not because they were given more opportunities,
but because their God gave them a powerful sense of
their identity that saw opportunity where other people gave them
only opposition. We will not always be favorite, but we
will always have favor with God. And we will not
always be favorites in the society, but we will always
have a favorite outcome if we will simply remember that
there is, as doctor King said, a message truth knockdown
does rise. I'm a Christian. My religion doesn't stop on
Good Friday. It goes to the Easter Sunday morning. I
have an Easter religion, an East assist justice, and I
have an Eastern faith. If I didn't have that, I'd
put my Bible down, take up rock thowing. But I
am not. I am not gonna lay my legiend down
because I'm not gonna let my people down.
Speaker 1: Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet it is the scaffold that sways the future. For
behind the dim unknown stand it God keeping watch above
his own. Amen, Judge Griffin, thank you very much for
participating in our show today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. God bless you. Please give my
glove to your father and tell him, hey, folks, he
doesn't know the lawyer he used to talk to at
the Baptist mention is still praying born.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. I'm particularly grateful for that, for
that word of hope, and for that prayer from my father.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. More on k BLA Talk fifteen eighty.
When we come forward, it's Tenation's Tuesdays with Attorney Barbara Arnwine.
Speaker 3: Think you judge,