By DAVID MONKAWA
African American international civil rights activist and diplomat Rev. Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84.
Jackson ran for president twice in the 1980s. His Rainbow Coalition people’s platform led a push-back against Reaganomics (called the Washington Consensus or neo-liberalism), and some Democrats began to adopt it.
An important plank was national health insurance for all, later adopted by Sen. Bernie Sanders as “Medicare for All.”
In 1984, he was the only presidential candidate to visit Little Tokyo and speak out for redress and reparations for Japanese Americans.
He returned to L.A. in 1992 after the Rodney King uprisings and addressed the tension between Koreans and Blacks.
In 1995, he returned to Little Tokyo to support redress for Chinese slave laborers kidnapped during WWII by Kajima Corp. the owners of the then New Otani Hotel. This helped to pressure the hotel to agree to unionization by its workers.
His most familiar slogan is sorely needed now: “Keep hope alive!”
