The civil rights leader had suffered from a stomach ailment

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been released from a Chicago hospital, two days after being admitted for severe stomach pains. The 66-year-old civil rights leader checked into Northwestern Memorial Hospital last Wednesday and was treated for viral gastroenteritis, inflammation of the stomach and intestines, and dehydration, according to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the organization Jackson founded. He fell ill after returning from voter registration events in Ohio and Georgia, a news release said. “I have high regard for these doctors,” Jackson told the Chicago Tribune from his hospital bed Thursday. Jackson is now back on his regular schedule, a Rainbow/PUSH spokeswoman said.

He’s walking in the steps of LBJ and MLK, both champions of the poor

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, taking a cue from such anti-poverty crusaders as President Lyndon B. Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., says it’s time to launch a full-frontal assault on poverty. “We need to re-invest in America,” the 66-year-old civil rights leader told a crowd of nearly 300 people in Chicago during a fund-raiser for Covenant United Methodist Church. The speech attracted Democrats and Republicans, and it did not address either political party. That’s because it’s not all about politics or presidential campaigns, said Jackson, who is pushing voter registration and education. “Change has to come from the bottom up, not just the top down,” Jackson said at a news conference prior to his speech.

Darren “Bo” Taylor gave up his life with the Crips to foster harmony
Darren “Bo” Taylor, a one-time gang-banger who survived the mean streets of Los Angeles to bring about peace between rival gangs following the 1992 L.A. riots, lost a battle with cancer on Monday. He was 42. The former Crips member was perhaps the most unlikely peace activist. “Through his UNITY One organization, Taylor worked painstakingly to reduce street violence and to teach life skills to inmates. You don’t find many in the gang-intervention world who can be effective in the street, effective in the courtroom, effective at City Hall and effective in the prisons,” civil rights attorney Connie Rice told The Associated Press. “He could calm everyone down and make us work together.” Survivors include his wife, Marlene Oglesby-Taylor, and mother, Charlene Taylor. (Photo/ Los Angeles Times).

Don’t count on Jesse or Colin in Denver.

Secretary of State Colin Powell downplayed reports that he’d be standing next to Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention in Denver later this month. During the primaries, Powell had kind words for Obama, stoking speculation that the first African-American secretary of State might throw his support behind potentially the first African-American president. Go to BET.com/News for more..

Second noose is found on Tennessee construction site. For the second time this month construction workers at the BlueCross BlueShield building site in Tennessee Thursday found a noose at the worksite in Cameron Hill. It was constructed of plastic building material, FBI Agent in Charge Ed Galloway told The Chattanooga Times Free Press. He said his office is investigating. Skanska, the company in charge of the construction project, is offering diversity and sensitivity training, the newspaper reports. “We’ve added a tremendous amount of security at the site,” John Reyhan, general manager for the project, Reyhan said. “And at our job-wide meeting every morning we are encouraging anyone to come forward with any reports of intimidation.” The first noose was found last week.

For somebody with his civil rights track record, he’s allowed a mistake, he says.

Granted, the Rev. Jesse Jackson slipped up when he was recorded whispering some crass comments to a fellow guest on a TV news show, but it’s wrong to treat the civil rights leader as if he’s no longer deserving of respect, the Rev. Al Sharpton said this week. “We have all made mistakes,” Sharpton . We have all erred, and we ought not try to sugar coat when we err,” Sharpton told a gathering of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kenner, La. “But we should not throw away everything when we err, and to say that Rev. Jackson made a mistake is correct, but to act like Rev. Jesse Jackson is not pivotal to our movement, our history … is wrong … Jesse Jackson is somebody.” Earlier this month, while Jackson was waiting to go on air with the “Fox & Friends” show in Chicago, he was taped leaning over to another African-American guest and saying, “Obama talks down to Black people… I want to cut his nuts off.” It was later disclosed that Jackson had also used the “N”-word; he was not referring to Obama. Jackson has apologized for his comments, even acknowledging they were “regretfully rude.” Sharpton, who runs the Harlem-based National Action Network, also blasted those who see Obama as an alternative to old-school civil rights leaders. “The bias in the media is they try to act like we can’t have multiple strategists,” Sharpton said. “We have never had a one-man movement.” Does Rev. Sharpton have a point about Rev. Jackson?