Jesse Jackson: “Tomorrow is Minnesota’s big moment.”

On his way to a rally for Democrats on Minneapolis’ East Lake Street tonight, civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson made a stop in North Minneapolis at the home of State Sen. Linda Higgins. Although he was there to rally the assembled before tomorrow’s mid-term election, he was among friends–Keith and Kim Ellison, State Senate candidate Augustine “Willie” Dominguez, Hennepin County Commissioner candidate Gregory Gray, former city council president Jackie Cherryhomes and her husband, defense attorney, Clayton Tyler, councilman Don Samuels and his wife Sondra, three dozen northside residents and their children (including one who got her copy of Green Eggs and Ham autographed by Jackson)–so he assumed a casual, at times quiet, tone that resembled his trademark fiery speeches only in his adept wordplay.

Story continues…The real occasion was a sign-party: ever since Paul Wellstone’s first campaign, Higgins has been organizing the placement of “Vote Today” signs–120 of them, purchased by Higgins–on the north and south sides of town. The crowd was truly diverse, a “rainbow coalition,” as Dominguez said in his introduction of Jackson. Founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Jackson, too, noted the racial mix of the audience:

An African American can reconcile Davey Crockett in Appalachia and Elvis Presley’s people in Memphis, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and Stax Records and Isaac Hayes in Memphis: you’re doing some coalition building. And it speaks well for the future of who we are. What makes this race tomorrow make me tremble