Jesse Jackson now says he doesn’t remember saying it, but South Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State, is standing by its story that the civil rights leader complained after a speech there that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is “acting like he's white” for not speaking out more forcefully about a racially charged schoolyard beating in Louisiana.
Even if he did say it, Jackson asserted, he was quoted out of context. Still, the episode underscores the Obama difference as a black candidate. When Jackson, who has endorsed the Illinois senator, ran his groundbreaking campaign for president in 1988 he did it as a civil rights activist and preacher who most certainly would have joined the march today in Jena, Louisiana to protest the racial turmoil there.
But Obama is trying not to run as a black leader, but rather as a worthy contender who happens to be African American. And he so far has no plans to join today’s march in Jena.
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