Old Friends, Unspoken Truths

By Jesse Jackson Jr.

AMWS October 18, 2026 -- When a Jewish American is accused of racism, the defense is often, "I have Black friends." When a Black American is accused of antisemitism, the defense is often, "I have Jewish friends." Both may be telling the truth. But neither defense admits what every honest friendship across that line already knows: that both sides bring unspoken truths and prejudgments into the room.

In the era of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Gaza, those unspoken truths are being spoken loudly, and often by the wrong people.

Let me start with what we share. We hold the same God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. We hold the same five books, and when our people were forbidden to read, the very book we were forbidden was theirs first. We hold the same four words, Let my people go. And there is a perfect intersection between Goshen and the ghetto. Somebody drew a line around a people and called the drawing of it a mercy.

But our stories part. The Jewish people possess a Promised Land, where they are the majority and rightly resist every effort to subjugate them. Ours, if it exists, exists here, in the very Egypt of our captivity, where we remain a minority. And the departure from Pharaonic slavery is different from the departure from constitutional slavery. Pharaoh never wrote a Hebrew into his constitution as three-fifths of a man. When the injury is written into the founding document itself, a people cannot simply leave the scene of it. A people must amend it. Their deliverance required a sea. Ours required a civil war, and it is not finished.

Consider what the Trump administration has done in the name of fighting antisemitism. It froze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard and threatened billions more from universities. Five Jewish Democratic senators, including Chuck Schumer, wrote to the President that he was using "a real crisis as a pretext" and "hiding behind claims of tackling antisemitism as a guise." In the same season, on April 23, 2025, the President signed an order directing the government to "eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible." That legal tool has protected Black Americans from discrimination in housing, hiring and lending for half a century.

Think about what that means. One community's fear is held up as the reason for government action, while the other community's protections are quietly taken apart. That is not friendship toward Jewish Americans. It is a strategy that uses Jewish pain as a weapon and Black rights as a casualty. It sets the two communities against each other.

Most Jewish Americans see it. Roughly 78 percent of Jewish voters supported Kamala Harris in 2024, according to CNN's exit poll, and an AP-NORC survey this year found that about 7 in 10 Jewish adults view President Trump unfavorably. Black voters rejected him by even wider margins. On the question of Trump, the old allies still largely agree.

Gaza is harder. Black Americans watch the images from Gaza and many see a people under siege, displaced and without a state. That recognition is rooted in our own history, not in hatred of anyone. Jewish Americans watch October 7 and the rise of antisemitism here at home and see a people under threat once again. The AP-NORC survey found that about 6 in 10 Jewish adults call antisemitism an extremely or very serious problem, and about 3 in 10 say they or someone in their household experienced an antisemitic incident in the past year. Both of these realities are true at the same time.

Jewish Americans are also deeply divided about Gaza. About a quarter of religiously affiliated Jewish adults, and roughly 4 in 10 who are not religiously affiliated, told AP-NORC that Israel has committed genocide there. Jewish Americans do not speak with one voice on Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu does not speak for them.

That is the first unspoken truth both communities must say aloud. To blame Jewish Americans for the conduct of Netanyahu's government is antisemitism. To brand every Black critic of that government an antisemite is a way of silencing people who have earned the right to speak about oppression.

The second unspoken truth is harder. Some Black Americans wonder whether Jewish allies will stand with them when the issue is Black power, not just Black suffering. Some Jewish Americans wonder whether Black allies will stand with them when antisemitism comes from within the Black community. Those fears have been whispered for decades. Real friends should be able to say them out loud.

So let us change the defense. Not "I have Black friends." Not "I have Jewish friends." But this: "Because I have friends on the other side, I owe them the hard conversation."

Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel did not agree on everything. But they marched together, because each knew that the other's freedom was bound up with his own. That truth has not changed. Only our courage to live by it has.

Jesse Jackson Jr. is a political activist who served as U.S. Representative for Illinois’s 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 2012. The son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr., he was active in the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the Democratic National Committee before Congress. Known for work on the Appropriations Committee, he pursued voting rights, health care, and infrastructure projects.

October Surprise: #NoPoverty rocks political fundraising

By Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, Alkebulan Diaspora October 17, 2026 (1331 Days) —   An estimated 210 million voters in the United States are counting on an “October surprise” in the last 17 days of the 2026 mid-term elections.  It comes amidst divisive political fundraising between Democrats and Republicans. Election Day, established in 1845 by the U.S. Congress, engages citizens in shaping government leadership and policy.   No political event over the last 180 years in U.S. history has resulted in the sustainable outcome of its corporate identity as “One Nation Under God with liberty and justice for all”.

On 17 October 1987, more than 100,000 people gathered at the Trocadéro square in Paris — the site where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 — to honor victims of extreme poverty, hunger, and violence.  The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has since reminded America of its call to form “a more perfect union.”

Instead, political leadership has steered a course toward its ultimate demise by failing to visualize the color purple between red and blue. Not all of America’s 350 million souls are eligible to vote, but any two of them can look at a rainbow for guidance on “Where do we go from here?”

In 2005, Arthur A. Fletcher presented goals and timetables for parity as a nation within the United States of America.  In 2025, The African Union designated 2025 as the “Year of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations,” marking a formal continental commitment to address historical injustices such as slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and systemic racial discrimination.   On 25 March 2026, the UN General Assembly declared the transatlantic slave trade and racialized chattel slavery of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.  The 2026 mid-term elections advances the global cause for inclusion as U.S. policy.

 

COMMUNITY over CHAOS may be influenced by one’s religious belief.  However, when a nation’s full faith and credit is threatened, 1331 days to demonstrate #NoPoverty2030 #MissionPossible may perhaps be the safest course toward self-preservation.  ActBlue processed about $3.8 billion in the 2024 election cycle, while WinRed processed about $2.4 billion in the same cycle, for a combined total of roughly $6.2 billion.   “No kingdom divided can stand” is a 2000-year-old warning that internal division inevitably leads to collapse, whether in a nation, household, or spiritual realm.  #ThePentacostProject includes any of 2.4 billion #HeirsofSalvation in bridging a digital divide between red and blue with The Color Purple.

An October surprise is a major political event—often a scandal, crisis, or revelation—that breaks in the final weeks of a U.S. presidential campaign and has the potential to influence the outcome of the November election.  The term was coined in 1980 by Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager William Casey, but such late-breaking shocks have occurred for over two centuries.

#ThePentecostProject is a faith-based anti-poverty social action associated with The Free African Society for the 21^st Century. It calls on an estimated 2.4 billion Christians, described as #HeirsofSalvation, to support #NoPoverty2030 through their shared belief that anything is possible.

Goal: Help make ending poverty by 2030 “#MissionPossible.”

Timeline: June 8, 2025, through June 9, 2030, established by the project as Pentecost Sunday.

Audience: Approximately 2.4 billion Christians worldwide.

Focus: Generation Alpha and families in Africa and the African diaspora.

Proposed mechanism: Faith Family Trusts, youth economic inclusion, crowdfunding, and prospective partnerships with institutions such as the African Development Bank.

Religious basis: Pentecost is used as a symbol of spiritual empowerment, collective action, and communication across communities.

The Pentecost Project is best described as an independent campaign or proposed model, not an official United Nations, World Bank, or African Development Bank program.

 

A Declaration, Not a Forecast

The 1,331-day objective is a campaign commitment, not a prediction that poverty will disappear automatically by June 9, 2030. Ending poverty requires coordinated action by governments, communities, businesses, charities, faith institutions and people with lived experience of poverty. It also requires transparent measures that distinguish extreme poverty from the broader forms of deprivation recognized in national definitions.

Five Priorities for 1,331 Days

1.      Protect household stability. Support durable social-protection systems, food security, safe housing and access to essential health services.

2.      Expand pathways to decent work. Back skills training, small-enterprise growth, fair access to finance and jobs that provide reliable income.

3.      Invest in children and young people. Prioritize education, nutrition, digital access and protection from shocks that can lock families into intergenerational poverty.

4.      Direct resources where poverty is concentrated. Use credible local data and community leadership, especially in conflict-affected and fragile settings such as in Sub-Saharan Africa.

5.      Publish results. Track funds, participation, services delivered and independently verifiable changes in poverty and well-being.

A Global Constituency

The figure of 2.4 billion broadly corresponds to widely cited estimates of the global Christian population, although demographic totals vary by source, year and method. In this campaign, #HeirsofSalvation, The International Children’s Bible establishes faith-based evidence of inclusion in the True Family of Jesus The Christ.  The term, #BlackJesus presents a visual image of humanity’s origin.

The Measure of the Declaration

A declaration against poverty gains meaning through disciplined action: listening to affected communities, setting public targets, financing proven interventions and reporting outcomes honestly. The next 1,331 days offer a common clock. The test is not the size of the audience reached by a hashtag, but the number of people who gain sustaining security through multiple opportunities.

Source note: Poverty figures and definitions are drawn from the World Bank’s September 2026 Global Poverty Update and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 1 materials. The 2.4 billion figure is presented as an approximate campaign audience, not a verified count of people who identify with the hashtag.

 

The Visit

 

“THE VISIT” is a collaborative report on an event witnessed by The Reverend James Milton Stradford. 

THE STRADFORD FAMILY JEWELS is one of 12 first chapters on an extraordinary journey from “slaveship to spaceship.”  For those who have yet to share THE VISIT by The Reverend James Milton Stradford, it was published October 2001 in TheEnterpriZe from slaveship to spaceship, an intellectual property of Eric Stradford and Stephanie A. Walker Stradford.

As he slept through the night, THE VISIT, which some might call a dream, became reality for James Milton Stradford and those with whom he shared it.  “I don’t know how it started. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred the day before.  It was as eventful as any other day.” He estimates the journey occurred sometime between two and four o’clock in the morning (Chronos).

“I was talking to Mother before I went into the hospital and before I knew it, we were going up the King’s Highway.”  Alma Catherine Thomas Stradford, his bride of 57 years at the time, could not recall THE VISIT.  But according to Big Dad, she was clearly present.  “I can’t recall how I was dressed, but she wore a long evening gown.”  Big Dad’s eyes shined brightly as he described his bride’s beauty.  In listening, one could visualize a celestial princess clad in a flowing gown of gossamer.  It was crystal clear that they were headed for someplace they had never been.

The road they traveled was not pavement.  It did not appear as clusters of clouds.  It was just like the sun shining down from Heaven to Earth.  You could see the streak of light where the sun went down into the water.  The light on which they traveled measured about 10-12 feet in width.  “It was just a light, but it looked like a fraction from a mighty powered light.”

Though Big Dad never finished high school, he painted a verbal picture that reflected Wisdom’s presence.  The true beauty of this painting was the God-given simplistic manner in which it was being presented.  With tear-filled eyes and a steady voice, his recollection of THE VISIT continued.

“We went up from Earth to Heaven and, when we got to Heaven, the doors were open.  The door did not open as we arrived – the heavens were already open, and we just walked in.  Moses was the first I recognized.  He was there to log us in.  He was big—a great giant of a man – favored Milton (oldest grandchild).  His golden hair was twisted to one side and he was pleasant. He was the most beautiful man I ever saw.  When I looked at him, I knew him as I know you.  I had never seen him before, but I knew this man to be Moses.”

After Moses, we came to Peter’s mansion, and after that, the mansion of the Apostle Paul.  He recalled that “they too were men of great stature—men he had never seen before.  Nobody told me this was Peter.  Nobody told me it was Apostle Paul.  No one introduced me to Moses.  When I saw them, I knew them—I knew them by name.”

The next area visited was described as a construction site.  “The took me to a mansion that was not complete.  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.  The architects were still working on it.  They said to me this is going to be yours when it is finished.” 

From there, THE VISIT continued to a “Hall of Records.”  There were two names on a scroll on the wall.  I don’t know what the first name was, but the second was mine.”

“Oomph!  All the people I worked with and all the friends I’ve had, you mean to tell me that only two names are on the scroll and one of them is mine?”  At that point, a voice spoke to him saying, “This is your record which has been kept.  The reason why your record appears here is simply because you did what I told you to do.  You didn’t give into the world or the dictation of anybody.”  The voice continued, “Your record is here and when your mansion is completed, you’ll be in yours as the Apostles Paul, Peter and Moses are in theirs.

From the Hall of Records, they traveled to what Big Dad thought would be the reception or banquet for which they were formally dressed.  “We came around the edge of the River of Life, where we sat down.  Everything was moving around –everything and everybody.  Every living creature would just step off into the River of Life.  Nobody was struggling to get in or out.  There was no sign of anything unkindly.  There was no death.”

“We left there for an area where there were two rivers.  One river went one way and the other flowed the other way.  There was nothing earthly about these rivers.  They were separate from the River of Life.  They were crystal clear with no dirt or anything in them.”  Big Dad referred to this area as the “Alter of the Almighty.”

“We heard a mighty sound—mightier than the great jets taking off.  Trying to figure out where this noise was coming from, we happened to look up.  The sound was coming from a great bronze-colored chariot.”

Big Dad described the sled shape of the chariot’s front as having “a turn-up” and God was standing in the midst of it.  “It came over us.  Just as it passed, I caught a glimpse of it to know what color it was.  In the shadows I could see the golden hair of the Almighty.  I didn’t see his face, just the shadow.”  He said, “I am God, beside Me there is none other.” 

THE VISIT ended with a ride home in a gray-colored chariot.  “The next thing I remember, we were getting out of the chariot and I woke up.”