Fellow Burlingtonians,
tonight is a very important 
night for me
and I know for many 
of us here in this room.
Because tonight we have 
an opportunity to play a part
in one of the most exciting 
and significant political developments
in the modern history 
of the United States.
Tonight many of us are going to give 
our support to a candidate for president
who has done more than any 
other candidate in living memory
to bring together the disenfranchised,
the hungry, the poor,
the workers who are being
thrown out of their decent-paying jobs
and the farmers who are 
being thrown off of their lands.
Tonight we have come together 
to support a candidate
who is creating a historic 
coalition of working people,
of poor people, of women, 
of minorities, of students,
of farmers, of peace advocates, 
of environmentalists.
Tonight we are here 
to endorse a candidate
who is saying loud and clear 
that enough is enough.
That it's time that this nation was returned 
to the real people of America,
the vast majority of us, and that power no longer 
should rest solely with a handful of banks
and corporations who presently dominate 
the economic and political life of this nation.
Tonight we are here to support a man who, 
when elected president,
will move boldly to end the growing 
disparity between the rich and the poor.
It is not acceptable to him, 
to me, or to most Americans
that 10 percent of the population 
of this nation
is able to own 83 percent of the wealth.
And the other 90 percent of us, 
share 17 percent of the wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen, 
when our candidate becomes president,
and we believe that he will, 
we will see a movement
toward the establishment 
of a national healthcare system.
Which once and for all in this country, 
will guarantee healthcare as a right of all citizens
and not just the privileged of the wealthy.
When our candidate is elected president, 
we will see a fundamental change
in the national priorities of our nation.
We will build fewer bombs 
and more affordable housing.
Less nerve gas, and more childcare centers.
We will stop the store war 
madness in its tracks
and spend our wealth 
to save the family farm,
to protect our environment, 
to increase federal aid to education
so that every young person
who has the capabilities can go to college.
We will utilize the best minds of this nation
not to research into new and more 
sophisticated ways to kill people,
but to rebuild our industrial base to prevent 
acid rain and the destruction of the ozone layer
and to find the solution to AIDS 
and other killer diseases.
Our nation is a great nation 
with unlimited potentiality.
What we need is leadership,
which will tap our innate strengths 
so that we can improve the quality of life
for our people and not concentrated 
on how to destroy life.
When our candidate is elected president,
we will finally have a foreign policy 
which says to the people of Nicaragua,
to the people of Latin America 
and the Third World,
that we are your allies and your friends, 
not your oppressors.
We will stop once and for all supporting 
every right-wing dictatorship
in the world that serves 
the need of corporate greed.
Ladies and gentlemen, 
and fellow Burlingtonians,
the candidate we’re supporting tonight
has stood for us and fought for us 
for the last 25 years of his life.
Along with Martin Luther King, Jr., 
he put his life on the line so that all Americans,
regardless of color, could receive 
their basic democratic rights.
He was there when we needed him.
Our candidate has stood with the farmers 
being thrown off of the land.
He has stood with the workers on the picket lines 
being thrown out of their jobs.
He was there when we needed him.
Fellow Burlingtonians, our candidate 
has stood with us when we needed him.
Tonight, he needs us. 
Let us be there for him.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to place 
a nomination, this evening,
the name of one 
of the great leaders of our time,
and a man who has waged the most 
courageous and excited political campaign
in the modern history of this nation.
I place the nomination,
with a great deal of personal pride,
the name of Jesse Jackson.
