E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia, expressed more controversial views on African-Americans yesterday, this time claiming that government social programs have done more harm to the black community than slavery.
“In 1960, most black children were raised in two-parent, monogamous families. By now, by this time, we have only 20 percent of black children being raised in a two-parent, monogamous families with the married man and woman raising those children,” Jackson said. “It wasn’t slavery that did that, it was government that did that. It tried to solve problems that only God can solve and that only we as human beings can solve.”
Jackson has been a lightning rod because of his views, which include stating that President Obama has “Muslim sensibilities;” accusing the Democratic Party of enslaving African-Americans, and claiming that gays and lesbians are “very sick people, psychologically and emotionally.”
Jackson’s selection as the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor might pose problems for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, who in recent months has tried to keep his campaign message focused on jobs and the economy—even as Democrats try to attack him for his staunchly conservative record on abortion and gay rights.
Last fall, Jackson, a black minister from Chesapeake who is a Harvard Divinity School graduate, posted a four-minute video on YouTube during which he accused the “civil rights establishment” of selling out their Christian values to support Democratic policy positions on gay marriage and abortion.
“The Democrat Party has created an unholy alliance between certain so-called civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood, which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions,” Jackson said, as he encouraged blacks to vote Republican in the November election. “Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.”
Jackson is the founder of an organization called STAND (Staying True to America’s National Destiny), which on its website describes abortion as “the equivalent of an idolatrous offering to the god of ‘sexual license.’”
“It is no different than in times past when pagans offered their babies on an altar of fire to assure their own good fortune,” the STAND website says.
Jackson yesterday told a group of people at a Juneteenth celebration in Newport News that Americans “should remember” the country’s history of slavery, but “not wallow in it.”
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas first learned of the end of slavery from Union Gen. Gordon Granger, and it is now celebrated as a day marking the end of slavery in the United States.
Jackson, the great-grandson of slaves from Orange County, said, “We are founded on the principle of truth that our rights, our freedoms do not come from a government, a king, a president, a potentate. They came from almighty God; they come from our creator. And even while slavery still existed in this nation, those words resonated in the consciences of the American people.”
“Today, all Virginians celebrate and honor those who fought, struggled, and died to end slavery in this nation,” Northam said. “Despite how far we have come, there is still progress to be made and I refuse to accept any form of discrimination.”
