In response to the recent hate crimes in Portland, at the invitation of Rev. Mark Knudsen, the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke to a public press gathering at Augustana Lutheran Church on June 2, 2017. Rev. Jackson said that we must prayerfully acknowledge the “martyrs among us” whose lives are sacrificed as were the two men who were killed while trying to stop an “anti-Muslim” hate rant at the Max train station. He noted that “we may not be able to stop their crucifixion, but neither can they stop our resurrection.” We must become “instruments of peace, not hate.” He recommended that when they march, we stay home, “denying them fuel for their hate.”
He observed that “poverty is an annihilation,” and that we must “leave the racial battlefield to seek an economic common ground that will enable us to achieve the moral high ground” where all men are treated equally in a global community. We must pull down the walls of ignorance to build bridges of understanding. We must remember that regardless of our color or religion, we live in “one big tent.” B. Gregg