Hamline University Social Justice Symposium Opens With a Call to Action Rooted in Jesse Jackson's Legacy
Hamline University's Social Justice Symposium Week opened April 7 with a keynote address from Macalester College professor Walter Greason, who examined the Rev. Jesse Jackson's revolutionary contribution to civil rights and his vision of universal human dignity as a model for today's activists.
Hamline University’s Social Justice Symposium Week opened April 7 with a keynote address from Walter Greason, a civil rights scholar and professor at Macalester College. His talk, titled “Prophetic Rhetoric, Direct Action,” examined the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s role in carrying forward the civil rights movement.
Greason argued that Jackson’s most revolutionary contribution was affirming the value of not only Black life, but of all human life. “Jesse Jackson is one of the first people to operationalize the idea that people from all backgrounds all have value, that our fundamental human dignity must be respected at all places at all times,” he said.
For attendees like Khadijah Sookhanan, that message felt especially relevant. She said today’s activists can learn from Jackson to “stand ground in themselves and what they do, and also be outspoken against all injustices.” She also emphasized the importance of sustaining that work even when it feels exhausting.
Kareem Watts, Hamline’s director of the Hedgeman Center for Student Diversity Programs and Initiatives and one of the event’s organizers, said Jackson’s focus on universal human rights was a key reason he wanted the symposium to center on the activist. Environmental justice was the symposium’s other focus.
Jackson’s emphasis on dignity influenced Watts’ own leadership philosophy. “Certain folks… the rich, wealthy, leaders with major titles and corporations will say that only these people that are in this class have value, but he saw all people with dignity and value,” Watts said. “I try to also lead by that example, recognizing everyone, even a small gesture of saying ‘Hi’ and a smile, not just to staff and faculty and students, but to custodians and the workers in the cafeteria.”
Greason traced the concept of universal human dignity to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He described the AME Church as having built, 80 years before the Civil War, “a free society within a society that is dedicated to segregation and enslavement.” Beyond worship, AME communities established schools, businesses, libraries and literacy programs, even without the right to vote.
Greason argued that work laid the foundation for American freedom, and that neither the Civil War nor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement would have been possible without it. “The only way we get here is because of the previous 130 years of struggle,” Greason said. “All on this vision, on this belief that we should be able to come together no matter where we’re from, no matter what our background is, no matter what religion or what language we speak.”
That is the tradition Jackson inherited as he worked to actualize King’s dream.
Drawing from earlier leaders, Jackson made their ideals tangible through both rhetoric and direct action. His signature phrases, “I am somebody,” “Keep hope alive!” and “Yes, we can!” resonated with attendees, who connected them to today’s rallying cries of “Black Lives Matter” and “No Kings.”
“Reverend Jackson was an architect,” Greason said. “He built the structure in ways that were not possible for his parents or his grandparents. He took the infrastructure that existed before him and said, this can be for everyone. This is the open door for anyone, anywhere in the world. The idea of democracy is for everybody, that our self rule, our human dignity, our ability to vote, must never be threatened or taken away. … He redesigned corporations, he redesigned laws, he redesigned our basic assumptions about who we are and what we can accomplish.”
Watts said he hopes that message stays with attendees long after the symposium. “I would [hope] they leave the symposium with a new focus to really take action, to do something, whether that’s protesting or writing a letter to Congress or to the mayor or the governor, just taking more direct action,” he said.
Greason also noted how far society has come, pointing out that a gathering like the keynote would once have been illegal. That reflection resonated with Sookhanan. “We’ve come a very long way,” she said. “To be in a space like this where we’re not feeling unsafe and at risk of our lives, it really resonates.”
Both speakers and attendees acknowledged, however, that the work is far from finished. Greason closed with a reflection on the ongoing Artemis II lunar mission: “I think I just heard somebody circle the moon saying something about human dignity and the love that we should carry for each other into the future. It’s one of the most powerful messages we can ever participate in.”
Anya Armentrout is a freelance journalist, a student at Macalester College and a contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.