From left: LaVaughn King, Noah King III, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Amos Brown and Doris Ward pray in 2007 at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.

The most important speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco was delivered, not by the presidential nominee, but by the third-place candidate. The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Coalition” speech was a clarion call for a fractured nation to embrace its diversity, comparing the country to a quilt “held together by a common thread” and made of every kind of fabric imaginable.

“The white, the Hispanic, the Black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled,” he said, “make up the American quilt.”

Related: Jesse Jackson gave his most important speech in San Francisco. It still resonates today

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I remember being at Moscone Center with the Rev. Jackson that day, and his words and their impact have never left me. That truth was not only a testament to his wisdom, but it retains its supreme importance today when old prejudices have been resurrected in an effort to rip our national quilt apart.

Indeed, Jackson issued a stark warning that ignorance, prejudice and fear posed an existential threat to that quilt, and that the nation must protect it and grow it: “We cannot stand idly by. We must fight for a change now,” and the “requirement for rebuilding America,” he said, “is justice.”

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The power of Jackson’s words and his........

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