JACKSON URGES STUDENTS TO BEAT ADVERSITY

In Remarks at 'Town Hall' Meeting, Civil Rights Activist Calls for Fight to
End Injustice

On day three of his stay in the Lowcountry, the Rev. Jesse Jackson
encouraged students at two area schools to rise above adversity and
encouraged everyone attending an NAACP "town hall" meeting to get involved
in fighting injustice.

Jackson kicked off Monday with a 6:30 a.m. prayer vigil with area
ministers, residents and students at Stratford High School in Goose Creek
where the controversial Nov. 5 drug raid took place.

Twelve hours later, he attended a forum organized by the state chapter of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that dealt
with the raid. About 250 people gathered at Westview Primary in Goose Creek
to share their concerns and ask questions.

Parent Cassandra Richardson said she hoped Jackson's presence made people
"see the importance of keeping this going until justice is done." Thomas
Battles, regional director for the U.S. Department of Justice's community
relations service, said the FBI has sent its preliminary investigations on
both the Stratford drug search and the Nov. 7 fatal shooting of a mentally
ill black man in North Charleston to the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division.

Authorities have not yet determined whether race was an issue in either
case, he said.

Battles, who is black, sat on a panel Monday night that also included Diop
Kamau, executive director of the National Police Complaint Center based in
Washington, D.C.

Students and parents got up one by one to make comments and ask questions
concerning how police and Principal George McCrackin handled the search.
The NAACP plans to write a report of Monday's two-hour meeting and send it
to the Justice Department, said state chapter President James Gallman.

Some parents asked why students were not provided counseling after the drug
search.

District spokeswoman Pam Bailey said earlier Monday that the school's five
counselors did provide therapy for students who asked. School officials
determined external counseling was unnecessary, she said.

Also Monday morning, Jackson spoke to students at Burke High School in
downtown Charleston, a predominantly black school where student test scores
are historically low.

He encouraged students to get a good education, hold fast to their dreams
and shun violence and drug use. He then had 17- and 18-year-old students
sign up for voter registration information.

The controversy over the drug raid continues to draw mixed reactions.

Tenth-grader Morgan Hawkins said the racial divide at the school was subtle
before the drug raid, but the atmosphere now is obviously strained.

"I think there's more racism going on in the school," said Hawkins, who is
black and was not in the hallway when police searched for drugs. "I don't
think it's going to get better."

Aubrey Kimzey, a white ninth grade student, said she hasn't noticed a
racial divide and still has friends of both races.

She, like Hawkins, was not part of the drug raid.

Jeff Peterson, whose daughter is in the 10th grade, said media hype has
kept the issue from dissipating.

"This needs to calm down and just get back to normal so the kids can get
back to normal," he said.

Jackson called on residents to participate in his march today to North
Charleston City Hall. It will leave Charity Baptist Church on East Montague
Avenue in North Charleston at 3 p.m.

"Let's let Goose Creek send a message to America," he said.