By ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Al Sharpton is condemning the Senate for failing to support President Barack Obama’s jobs plan.
Sharpton spoke Saturday, Oct. 15, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. He received cheers and applause when he said: ”If you can’t get the jobs bill done in the suites, then we will get the jobs bill done in the streets.”
Sharpton says the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported the cause for the ”cast down and cast back.”
King’s son, Martin Luther King III, also spoke. King invoked his father’s words from a half-century ago, when the elder King talked about the need for redistributing wealth. King says his father believed America must redistribute wealth to survive responsibly.
The American Jobs Act, introduced by President Obama last month during a speech before a joint session of Congress, is an effort to bolster job opportunities to quell record unemployment rates, which is over 16 percent in the African-American community.
Other organizational co-leaders joined Sharpton in the march. Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) said the need to march is to send a clear message to Congress. She was flanked by NAACP leaders, the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association, and the National Urban League, to name a few organizations.
About Post Author
