The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to a Fort Greene church to talk about the mortgage crisis, but the old politician in him couldn’t resist talking about everything else.
As the star attraction at Monday’s mortgage meltdown forum at the Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church, Jackson was trying to keep hope alive for the 2,200 Brooklynites who lost their homes in 2007.
He even unveiled a quintessentially Jackson chant to get the message across. “Restructure loans, not repossess homes,” the modest audience repeated along with him.
But the conversation veered into a wide range of current and historical events:
• On the Democratic presidential nomination: Jackson, who saw his own bid for the Democratic nomination fail in 1984, after calling New York City “Hymietown,” issued a warning to superdelegates who are pledged to Hillary Clinton even though their districts voted for Barack Obama. Jackson said that such superdelegates — like Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Clinton supporter who was in the audience — “should reflect the will of the people.”
• On a recent assertion by former Black Panther and Communist vice presidential candidate Angela Davis (see story at right) that racism is no less overt than in the 1950s: “We’ve gotten better at hiding it,” Jackson said
• On why the South was at the forefront of the civil rights movement instead of Jackson’s beloved New York: “You could pull off a bus boycott in Montgomery the way you never could in New York for a year.”
