Keep Hope Alive
February 23, 2026·0 comments·zg
Working through some Jesse Jackson reflections, I found myself stuck on these two quotes, below. They feel very “now” even though one is from 2013 and one is from 1988. I think they feel like now because there’s a timeless underdoggedness to them, and maybe it’s my small city mindset or my desire to root for hard-trying heartbreakers, they’re just really good quotes.
Sit with these for a minute:
Common ground leads to coalition, to cooperation, to reconciliation and redemption, and to higher moral and economic ground. ... I want to say to you young people especially — keep reaching beyond your grasp, keep dreaming beyond your circumstances, keep dreaming of a new Europe. When young people move, the world changes.
Jesse Jackson, to students at the Cambridge Union Society in England in December 2013
You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you’re qualified and you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive.
Jesse Jackson, as told to the party convention after nearly captured the Democratic nomination in 1988
I know no person is perfect. I know that’s just what complexity is, and that nuance shouldn’t miss us, even though it so often does. Jesse Jackson was flawed, just like the rest of us, in his own sometimes weird, and oftentimes generational feeling ways, but the core message and his voice carry on.
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