SALT LAKE CITY - Renowned civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson was in Salt Lake City on Thursday. The talk was part of the University of Utah's Martin Luther King, Jr. Week.
Jackson talked about racial equality, noting that African-Americans have been in slavery longer than they've been free, a date he put at 1965.
He spoke about the inauguration of President Barack Obama and the state of equal rights in the United States, saying there is still more to do.
Jackson declined to weigh in on the controversy over the use of the word "Dixie" at Dixie State College in St. George. The NAACP is calling for the name to be dropped, saying it's tied to racism and slavery.
But he did say that the Confederacy lost in 1865 and no one should be flying its flag today.
"We choose a more perfect union. The Confederates had an ideology that was anti-black, pro-slavery, anti-Latino, anti-Native American, anti-gender, anti-labor. They lost. The good news is they lost. I hope the people in this state would choose the American flag over the Confederate flag," Jackson said.
