Jackson Urges Blacks to Aim for Leadership Jobs : Lectures: He gives a rousing speech at gathering for federal employees.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson exhorted black government workers meeting here to work toward higher levels of leadership in the federal government, historically one of the few refuges of employment for blacks shunned by private enterprise but not a place where blacks have gained positions of power.

“Cotton picking was not that bad, except we could not own the land on which it was planted by law,” Jackson said, and added later: “Whether it’s cotton or government, the numerator changes, but the common denominator remains the same. These struggles are interrelated.”

Jackson’s rousing morning speech before a packed ballroom of 2,000 conventioneers--who gave him a sustained standing ovation--kicked off the last day of the 15th annual national training convention of Blacks in Government at the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles.

About 3,000 federal government workers from across the country have been here for a week of forums and workshops on myriad of topics, ranging from environmental pollution to advancing careers and surviving layoffs to diet and spiritual attitudes in the workplace.

Jackson tied his message to an appeal to attend the 30th anniversary March on Washington on Aug. 28 to commemorate the 1963 rally at which Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“There would not be a BIG if there had not been a Medgar Evers to die,” Jackson said. “There would not be a BIG if (Michael) Schwerner, (Andrew) Goodman, and (James) Chaney--two Jews and a black--had not died in Philadelphia, Miss. We’re here because we are the beneficiaries of the blood of martyrs.”

He said the goals of demonstrations and marches today are similar to those of long ago, but he noted some troubling distinctions between 1963 and 1993.

“We all talked 30 years ago about genocide,” Jackson said. “It’s now fratricide. At this point, the Klan is not nearly the threat that next-door neighbors are.”

Calling for a “spiritual regeneration,” Jackson noted that although the Rodney G. King beating had been decried as racially motivated, “don’t forget that had it not been for George Holliday, a white photographer who filmed it and took it public, you would never know Rodney King had existed.”

Jackson said: “When the four young blacks beat Reginald Denny, that was not right, that was morally wrong.” But he added: “Don’t forget four young blacks left their homes when they saw it on live television and saved him, and then took him to a hospital where a black doctor operated and saved his life.”

But mostly, Jackson urged workers to defend their significance to the government.

“There’s kind of an open season on government workers,” he said. “Workers be certain of this: The justice that we seek will not come to those necessarily who deserve it or who need it but rather those who are organized to get it with the will to fight back.”