The veteran civil rights activist criticized the president this week amid a nationwide campaign to inspire a sense of empowerment among African-Americans and accountability in government and corporations toward disadvantaged populations.
Jackson, who fought poverty and racism alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, launched the campaign this year amid ongoing strife over police shootings in communities of color and economic inequalities.
He said the high rate of black unemployment has been a lasting consequence of slavery and past legal discrimination that Obama, the first African-American commander in chief, should have dealt with more directly.
“The unfinished business is this issue of targeting racial justice,” Jackson told International Business Times in a wide-ranging interview about ideas for lifting people out of poverty. Even as job growth has been sustained month-over-month during the bulk of Obama’s presidency, the recovery from the 2007-09 financial crisis has been slowest for African-Americans -- and that has troubled both Jackson and economists.
“He has the view that racial injustice is something that requires a vote [in Congress],” Jackson said, referring to the president. “Blacks are without a targeted plan. Without one, we’ll never have an even playing field.”
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