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\nPastor Thomas Scott on Tuesday recalled a 2011 visit by Jackson to Tampa
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\nFormer State Sen. Arthenia Joyner\u00a0said she was the Tampa chair for both of Jackson\u2019s presidential campaigns from her law office in Tampa
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One of those stops was in 2011 at the 34th\u00a0Street Church of God in Tampa, where senior pastor Thomas Scott serves as pastor. He remembers the visit as if it were yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big crowd, lot of people. Historic, really, to have an icon like Jesse Jackson come to town, someone who has run for president, someone who was very much engaged,\u201d Scott said. “People held up signs and all kinds of things. This is where, at the conclusion of his speech, he talked about \u2014 repeat after me \u2014 I am somebody. I remember that well. That\u2019s one of his favorite speeches at the close of it. I may be poor, but I am somebody. May be on welfare, but I am somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson was at the church that day in 2011 to talk about voting rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring that time it was about voting. They were trying to change some of the voting laws because of Obama being elected, and so there was a fight and push at that time by Jessie Jackson and a lot of people to make sure we move forward as opposed to regressing,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
Jackson didn\u2019t end up at his church by chance. Former State Sen. Arthenia Joyner brought him there. She first met Jackson in 1971.<\/p>\n
\u201cFast forward to 1984, Jessie calls and says, ‘Arthenia, I\u2019m going to run for president, and I want you to chair my campaign in Tampa,’\u201d she said. “And of course, I did, and we ran a good campaign and he lost, of course. But in 1988, well, we stayed in contact and so in ’88, and he said, \u2018Well, I\u2019m going to try it again.”<\/p>\n
Joyner said she was the Tampa chair for both of Jackson\u2019s presidential campaigns from her law office in Tampa.<\/p>\n
As a civil rights icon herself, she watched as Jackson marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and then when he became a leader for all people after Dr. King\u2019s assassination. Now she says it\u2019s all about legacy and continuing the work he dedicated his life to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis man, who changed the course of history in this country for all of the people, but especially for Black people, because he paved the way for our first Black president, and so God has a way of leveling the playing field and he said, ‘Come home my good and faithful servant, well done,’ and may he forever rest in peace,\u201d Joyner said.<\/p>\n
She is calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to lower the flags at half-staff to honor the late Jesse Jackson. We reached out to the governor\u2019s office, and they told us to stay tuned for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The death of Rev. Jesse Jackson is a loss for people he affected all over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3140,274,276,2200,115,99,4368,135,137,136,278,2032,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-159094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-hillsborough-county","11":"tag-instagram-bn9","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-saundra-weathers","15":"tag-tampa","16":"tag-tampa-headlines","17":"tag-tampa-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-trending-topics","20":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}