BATON ROUGE, United States (AFP) - Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson fired off a fierce attack on President George W. Bush over Hurricane Katrina and claimed black people were being locked out of top relief roles.
Jackson raised the sensitive issue of race, simmering below the surface in New Orleans, even before the hurricane tragedy, pointing out that many of those trapped in the city by the storm were poor and black.
"There is a historical indifference to the pain of poor people, and black people ... we seem to adjust more easily to black pain."
Jackson spoke after leading a bus convoy into New Orleans to rescue 450 students trapped at Xavier University, and said he had been shocked by scenes of pain among refugees trying to flee the city |