ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512040096
SECTION: NATL/INLT PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Rev. Jesse Jackson made an emotional return to his civil rights roots Saturday, promising a nationwide drive to help Democrats retake Congress and evict Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., from the House speaker's chair.
Jackson credited his Rainbow Coalition political action group for the victory of his son, Jesse Jackson Jr., in a congressional primary last week. He said the coalition would focus next year on key House and Senate seats needed to re-establish Democratic control on Capitol Hill.
``The Rainbow is going to defeat Newt Gingrich in 1996,'' Jackson declared before about 400 people in a speech flavored with biblical rhetoric, underscored at times by an organist and heavily seasoned with Gingrich-bashing.
The occasion was Jackson's return to a churchlike, gray-pillared structure on Chicago's South Side that for 24 years has been the headquarters of Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity).
Jackson founded the civil rights group in the 1970s and led it for years, but left in 1984 to form the Rainbow Coalition in Washington, D.C. He announced Friday that he is returning as PUSH's chief executive officer, although he will continue to live in Washington and lead the coalition.
PUSH has languished in recent years, and Jackson said one reason for his return is to revitalize it. Even so, there were many empty seats in the well-worn auditorium, which in previous years often was packed on Saturday mornings with followers clapping to gospel music and drinking in Jackson's fiery civil rights oratory.
Jackson said PUSH will focus on economic objectives, while the Rainbow Coalition will focus on politics.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB