FORUM ON RAID KICKS OFF 4-DAY JACKSON VISIT

Georgetown Appearance Scheduled

GOOSE CREEK--The Rev. Jesse Jackson kicked off his four-day visit to the
Lowcountry on Saturday with a community forum to discuss the police raid at
Stratford High School that has drawn international attention.

Students from Stratford and their parents gathered at the Calvary Church of
God in Christ Saturday evening to share their stories with Jackson and to
listen to his advice. In the Nov. 5 drug raid, 14 Goose Creek officers went
into Berkeley County's largest school around 6:45 a.m., several with guns
drawn. Police handcuffed about a dozen of the more than 100 students in the
hallway while a barking police dog sniffed their backpacks. Officers found
no drugs and made no arrests.

Several students involved in the raid stood before the crowd of 50, and at
Jackson's prompting, described what happened.

One female student said a gun was put to her head. Another Stratford teen
told of a coach who pulled $3 from his pocket.

"I said, 'My mother gave it to me for lunch,' " recalled Carl Alexander, a
ninth-grader. "He just rolled his eyes."

With each anecdote, Jackson built a case for legal battles against the
school and the Goose Creek Police Department, but also tried to draw a
connection between the raid, which has received media attention as far away
as Australia, and other problems that face South Carolina, such as the
closure of the steel plant in Georgetown.

Today, Jackson will attend a rally at Georgetown High School, and in his
Saturday talk intimated that both the Stratford raid and the Georgetown
closing are issues with racial components lurking just beneath the surface.
Both will be the subject of discussion during the state's upcoming
presidential primary, he predicted.

"If we can shed our blood on foreign soil, we can expect equal protection
under the law at home," said Jackson, referring to the fact that about 80
percent of the students involved in the Stratford raid were black. "The new
South must shift racial fear through economic security. . . The Georgetown
workers, the Goose Creek workers, they can't compete with foreign labor."

Conspicuously absent from the talk was any mention of Asberry Wylder, the
man recently slain by North Charleston after stealing from a supermarket.

The theme of equal protection ran through most of Jackson's talk. He
criticized drug laws that have led to crowding in the country's penal
system and which he described as unfair, noting that even if the police had
found drugs on a student, problematic laws would still remain.

"We've given Rush Limbaugh dignity and due process. If there's mercy for
Rush and mercy for Noelle Bush, there should be mercy for everybody else,"
said Jackson, referring to the radio commentator and the president's niece,
both of whom have received treatment for drug abuse. "Use some process to
find out who has the guns, who has the drugs, who's selling the drugs, and
then bust them. But don't bring in the Gestapo. The dragnet approach is
unconstitutional."

Stratford parents expressed their hopes that Jackson's visit will bring
more attention to their children's case and will ensure that similar raids
never happen again.

"It's wonderful that he's taken an interest in this," said Sharon Stafford.
"When we ask the U.S. attorney to investigate this, we'll get more out of
that."

Just three days ago, Jackson called for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
to intervene and call for the prosecution of police involved in the drug
search.

JESSE JACKSON'S VISIT

SUNDAY:

11 a.m. worship service at Morris Street Baptist Church

4 p.m. rally at Georgetown High School

7:30 p.m. rally at Charity Baptist Church in North Charleston

MONDAY:

9 a.m. voter registration drive at Burke High School in downtown Charleston.

6:30 p.m. town hall meeting organized by the state NAACP at Westview
Primary School in Goose Creek

TUESDAY:

3 p.m. March begins at Charity Baptist Church in North Charleston and ends
at City Hall. march to North Charleston City Hall begins.