A tale of 2 Jesses
Geoff Metcalf interviews black responsibility advocate Peterson

Editor's note: Eleven years ago, Jesse Peterson was strung out on drugs, on welfare and driven by intense anger. In a little over a decade, he has become one of the most successful role models and counselors for the nation's blacks. He has also become one of the foremost black critics of America's current crop of "civil-rights leaders" and the methods they employ to secure support of the black community. An articulate defender of freedom and family, Peterson works to educate blacks and to encourage them to reject the "victimhood" mentality.

WorldNetDaily writer and talk show host Geoff Metcalf recently interviewed Peterson about his sponsorship of the Second Annual Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson and his new book, "From Rage to Responsibility".

By Geoff Metcalf
Question: Please tell our readers what BOND is and how it started.

Answer: BOND is the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny. Our purpose is to rebuild the family by rebuilding the man. We are a 10-year-old nonprofit organization. I started it because I realized about 10 years ago that black people were suffering -- not due to racism, but due to the brainwashing and the lack of character. White people weren't holding us back, but people like Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters, the NAACP, the Black Caucus, Louis Farrakhan and the liberal racist elite Democratic Party were holding us back.

Q: Why?

A: They were doing this in order to gain power and wealth. I realized nothing was going to get better in our country -- especially in the black community -- until men were to turn back to their proper state of being. It doesn't mean that they are better than women, but there is an order, I believe, in life.

Q: And what is that order as you see it?

A: That order is God in Christ, Christ in man, man over woman and woman over children. When you have that order, life works well. You still have some challenges, but you are able to see how to overcome them.

Q: How did you get started? You had an interesting road you traveled.

A: I grew up in Alabama on a plantation, right near Montgomery and the Tuskegee area. My grandparents worked the plantation, as did their parents and my parents, and so did I. I left there in 1968 to come to California. One thing I noticed in growing up is I never heard my grandparents or parents put down a white American. They did not sit around and say we should hate them. There is never a reason to hate but, if they wanted a reason, they had the reason to do it. They would tell us to work hard and do what's right. I wasn't raised by my father. I didn't have a dad in my life. When I moved to California, I discovered I did not know how to deal with the issues of life.

Q: You were a bad boy?

A: Yes. I had an emptiness, a void inside of me, and I tried to fill that with sex and drugs and all kinds of crazy things that only made me worse. I started to look for the answer and, to make a long story short, I went to some of the churches in Los Angeles, black churches. Instead of them showing me how to overcome my anger -- how to forgive so I could find my way -- they were encouraging me to hate more by blaming our problems on racism, on the white man, and things like that. Then I started listening to Maxine Waters and Louis Farrakhan and others, and they said how wonderful we were. We were kings and queens from Africa and we were the first on earth and all this crazy stuff but that we couldn't have it because of that ole blue-eyed devil, and that the bloodsucking Jew was trying to hold us back.

Q: How did you react to that conditioning?

A: I became very resentful toward white Americans. As you know, when you hate, it comes back on you. My self-esteem fell to an all-time low. I ended up on drugs and on welfare, because I was told if you are on drugs and a black American, you can get on welfare because that's considered a disability. You're not able to function, right? I went to the welfare office and told them I had this problem. They gave me $300 in cash. They paid my rent. They gave me $100 in food stamps and free medical coverage. And instead of getting better, I got worse.

Q: You left one plantation for another.

A: Yes, sir. To be honest with you, the plantation I left first was better than the one I ended up on, because at least I was working down there.

Q: How did you have your epiphany?

A: I had been looking for the answer and was just getting worse and worse. I had always wanted to be a man. I always wanted to do what is right, but it was just difficult to find that right way. I was driving in my car one day, and I heard a Jewish minister say, "If you want to overcome your anger, if you want to get better in life, if you want to know God, when you pray, go to your prayer closet and shut up and know God. Don't whimper and whine. God already knows your needs." I was so hungry for the truth and trying to overcome, I did what I heard him say to do. I went and sat in my prayer closet and, right away, it was revealed to me that I had this hatred in my heart for my mother and father.

Q: You didn't know that before?

A: I didn't know that growing up. I knew I had problems with my mother, but I didn't know I hated her.

Q: Why did you hate her?

A: I hated my mother because she hated my father. He wasn't a good man. He didn't marry her and do right by her, so she had a lot of anger toward him. With her anger, she tried to turn us, my sisters and my brothers, away from my father. "He's no good. He doesn't love you." Those types of things.

And as a kid, I used to wonder, why did my mother hate him so much? I became very resentful toward her. The worst thing a parent can do to a child, whether male or female, black or white, is to turn them away from their fathers. Because when you turn kids away from their fathers, you turn them away from God. The father represents God in the home. He's not God, but he represents Him. If you can't look at your father and see the right way to go, it causes a lot of confusion in your life.

Q: How were you able to make this transition? You had a difficult background. You were fed nothing but hatred most of your life, albeit in different flavors. Your mother hated your dad, and she was passing that along to you and your siblings. You were hearing all the black ministers saying it's all whitey's fault. How did you make the turn?

A: When I was sitting in my prayer closet and I realized I had this hatred for my parents, first, I went to them and apologized for hating them, because God says if you forgive others, he will forgive you. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life.

Q: What was their reaction?

A: I was 38 years old and my mother came to Los Angeles to visit her sister. As I got closer to her, I thought I would lose my breath. I thought someone had put lead on my feet. And I thought to myself, why am I afraid of my mother? I remember growing up as a kid -- whenever I tried to speak up or tell her she was wrong about something, she would make me doubt myself by yelling at me and putting me down. I finally said I was sorry for hating her and told her why.

Q: What did she say?

A: My mother apologized. She said, "I didn't realize I had done that to you." And for the first time, she told me things about my grandmother -- her mother -- and that exactly what was done to me had been done to her. I forgave her. And when I forgave my mother, God forgave me. And when he forgave me, he took away fear, doubt, worry, insecurity, and he gave me perfect peace.

Eleven years have gone by now, and I still have that perfect peace. I have not been the same since that day. Now I know my purpose in life and I also realized from that that black people were suffering -- not due to racism, but it was because we had been dumbed down and kept down deliberately -- and had been demoralized by people like Jesse Jackson and others.

Q: I'm delighted you told that story because it is a genuine blessing. It also underscores the fact that you really can accomplish almost anything.

A: Yes, that's right. I finished high school, but I am not well educated. But what I have, thank God, is I have the love for truth. I love truth more than anything else -- anything else -- and that has caused me to find my purpose in life.

I realize now that the warfare we deal with is a warfare between good and evil, not black and white. I realize that evil can dwell in black people as well as white people and that good can dwell in blacks and whites. And I realize that if black Americans don't get over their anger and resentment for white Americans, for the failings of their parents, for being lied to by Jesse Jackson and others, that things are going to get worse for them instead of getting better.

Q: I have heard your critics call you everything from an Uncle Tom to a house nigger to things we frankly can't say on the radio. What is BOND, and how did you develop it?

A: When I got over my anger and darkness, I realized, "Wow! This is what is wrong with black Americans." It's not the white man, but we are destroying ourselves due to this hatred and the failings of the parents.

So, I thought I'd go out and have a meeting to talk to black Americans about this. I called for a meeting and we had about 80 people show up at that first meeting. And I said to black Americans what I just told you -- about how we have been used by Jesse Jackson and others, and the problem is not the white man. They were so pleased with it, they wanted another meeting. From that next meeting we started the organization BOND: The Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.

The purpose was to rebuild the family by rebuilding the man. I believe if we can turn men back to God, back to what is right, and be guided by the truth, that they can guide their families in the right way to go, and then the situation would change in our country. I believe that we must restore the family.

Q: How did you spread the word beyond the original 80 people who showed up for your meeting?

A: We started the organization, and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed by the L.A. Times, ending up on "Donahue," "Geraldo" and different shows, and it kind of took off by itself. Then I thought I would do a radio show so I could reach black people in order to wake them up. We now deal with all people, not just black, but everybody, because it is a spiritual warfare. I got on a radio station called KTYM in Englewood, Calif., which is right in the heart of the black community, a Christian station.

Q: What was the reaction?

A: We went on and I said, "You're being screwed by your own people. You're being used by many of the black preachers. It's time to get over it and drop your anger, and you can go free." I then opened up the phone lines so we could talk about it, and to my surprise, I was called "nigger," and "Uncle Tom" -- a "sellout." We got threatened at the radio station day in and day out.

Q: That doesn't surprise me at all. You are talking about an entire community that has been conditioned to accept and embrace "victimhood."

A: They were so brainwashed. We have had 50 years of that -- 50 years of brainwashing. It's difficult to change it overnight. I was eventually banned from that radio station and, within the last 10 years, I have been banned from three radio stations here in Los Angeles.

Q: Is that all?

A: (laughing) Yeah, but we have endured. I have had guns drawn on me. All kinds of stuff has happened to me. But time has gone by and people are starting to listen. A lot of black Americans who were angry at me at first have taken a second look. They've thought about what I have to say. You'd be surprised at the number of black Americans who are saying, "You are absolutely right. I never thought about it before. I never stopped to think as to why I was acting the way I was acting and where my anger came from."

We also are working in juvenile detention centers and prisons and schools and things like that -- dealing with young people and showing them how to overcome their anger so that their true talent can come forth.

Q: We've talked on several different occasions and you talk about the need for setting aside this anger, the anger against your parents, the anger against the "white devil" ...

A: And against yourself, as well.

Q: But what is it, if it isn't anger, that you feel toward Jesse Jackson?

A: I can now see that the warfare that we deal with, as I said earlier, is a spiritual warfare between good and evil. And evil works through people as well as good. Evil is working through Jesse Jackson and it is using him to destroy a people -- a country -- if we allow it to happen. Jesse Jackson is a racist demagogue and he is only thinking of himself. He gets power and wealth by keeping people down and using them. These people get money by intimidating companies and businesses and things like that. And most of that money never reaches the pocket or hand of the people but it ends up in the hands of Jesse Jackson and others. So, I see that he is a wicked man and, because I see that, I realize we have to stand against it. If we don't, there is no end to his destruction. He is no different than the KKK or David Duke or someone like that.

Q: There are some who say you should turn the other cheek on a Jesse Jackson. Ignore him and continue to preach your message instead of giving any kind of validation to his.

A: Turning the other cheek simply means that when someone harms you you shouldn't hate him for it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't take a stand. I don't hate Jesse Jackson, but I realize that hatred is working through him. Hopefully, goodness is operating through me and good will overcome evil. What I'm doing is shining a light on evil -- or God is, through me -- shining a light on evil so people can see the right way to go. I'm not trying to destroy Jesse Jackson. I just want to expose him so that people can see that this man is no good.

Q: What is this Second Annual Day of Repudiation?

A: On Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, Jan. 15, we are going to have our Second National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson. We are going to do it in front of his Rainbow-Push office building here in Los Angeles on Wilshire Blvd. What we want to do, and will continue to do, is repudiate him until he repents. We want to show the contrasts between Dr. King and Jesse Jackson.

Q: Everyone knows that Dr. King said a man should be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. I asked Ward Connerly, at what point in Jesse's history did it change? Because as far as Jesse Jackson is concerned, it is not the content of one's character. It is, more precisely, the color of his skin that matters.

A: That's what we want to do that day -- is show that Dr. King had the dream that one day we would be judged by the content of our character, whereas Jesse Jackson dreams that we should be judged by our color. Dr. King believed that one day we would come together as a people.

Q: Jesse doesn't want you to be judged by your color -- he wants you to be paid for your color.

A: That's right. We are more divided today because of Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton and others. We want to show that contrast. At some point when Dr. King was assassinated, Jesse decided in his heart that he's going to go for Jesse, that he's going to take advantage of these people and use them for his own personal gain. At what point he decided on that, I don't know. But I do remember that there was a time when he was against abortion. He was against homosexuality. He at least pretended that he was for the people becoming free and independent.

But down the road that changed. For too long the media have given the impression that all black Americans agree with this man, that we are all alike. So, white Americans are afraid to stand up and say, "No this is wrong," for fear of being called racists. So we have to do it. Right now, if Jesse Jackson wanted to have a race riot, he could do it.

Q: One of the reasons you are so valuable in exposing Jackson is because I can say the same stuff you do, and he points his finger at me and calls me a blonde-haired, blue-eyed racist.

A: But that's all right, Geoff. They call me a "nigger."

Q: I've heard you called worse. This is the Second National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson. What happened when you did this last year?

A: When we first announced we were having this rally, all hell broke loose -- especially from the black community because they so identify with their leaders. Most black people live as though they live in Russia. This is a communist, socialist society, and you need your leaders to tell you how to think, what to eat, what to wear, where to go and when to go there.

Q: So who are their leaders? Is it Jesse? Is it Farrakhan? Al Sharpton? Who is it?

A: Yes, sir. Their leaders are Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and NAACP ...

Q: Whoever gets camera time?

A: Right! And many of the black preachers. You may be surprised how many wicked black preachers we have in the black community across the country, how they deliberately keep people down rather than setting them free. So many black Americans were upset about what we were doing. But I have to tell you -- I was so pleased with the turnout, and it even rained that day. A lot of people showed up anyway, and a lot of black Americans showed up. Once they came and they heard the truth about the civil-rights leaders and about Jesse Jackson, their eyes were open and it was like, "Wow, I can't believe that this is going on."

Q: What was Jesse's reaction?

A: I debated about three or four people from his board of directors. He won't debate me at this point. His people were outraged about it. I got a letter from one of his lawyers saying that we have to take his picture off our website. We have a picture of Jesse Jackson with a red line drawn through him, like a no-smoking sign. They threatened to sue us if we didn't remove that from the website.

Q: And?

A: I haven't heard anymore from them and we did not remove it. But he is mighty upset about this. The worse thing that can happen to the so-called civil-rights leaders and Jesse Jackson is for black Americans to stand up and say "No more!"

Q: This is my guess on it. You are asking Jesse to set aside his wicked ways and repent. I submit to you that Jesse Jackson will not ever repent unless or until his money dries up and his face time on camera dries up. Then, and only then, I suspect you might see Jesse Jackson coming to you on bended knee.

A: I agree. And that is why I have to educate the people. We have to let black Americans and white Americans and everybody know what this man is all about. And I feel blessed and honored that God has given us the know-how to take a stand against this man.

Q: I have heard from some critics who suggest that, "Oh, Jesse Peterson, he sounds cool, but he just wants his piece of the action."

A: I don't know what it is that I want other than to see goodness at work, because you don't make money doing this. We don't get one dime from the government.

Q: Jesse Jackson has gotten along well on it, thank you very much.

A: That's right. He gets lots of money. He gets wealthy from it, and it seems to be OK that he gets money from it, but if we try to stand up for good, somehow we are thinking about ourselves. Mainly, I don't really care what people say, because I see the destruction every day in the black community across the country. And I see what has happened to the family. I see what the public school system is doing and has done to black Americans.

I work with boys and girls that are coming out of high school -- they can't read, they can't write, they're not ready to deal with society. I deal with boys and girls who have been taken away from their parents by the government when they were little kids only because they complained about their parents trying to make them clean their house or their bedroom or something like that. They have no clue what that's all about.

Q: Who is going to be speaking at this Second National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson?

A: So far we have confirmed Ezola Foster. She ran with Pat Buchannan for vice president. We've confirmed Joyce Smith. She's a black woman out of Houston, Texas. We have Pastor Wiley Drake.

Q: Is Barbara Coe going to be there?

A: She'll be there. And others who we are working on who have made a commitment, but we're still confirming. This time, I made the announcement of the Second National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson on "Hannity and Colmes," and it was like I opened up a floodgate. We have received phone calls and letters and support -- including financial support -- from all over the country. The telephone calls and the letters have not stopped coming in. People want to take a stand now. They want to do something about this man because they see the hatred in his heart and they can no longer pretend it is not there.

Q: A common theme on my radio program for a decade has been accountability -- responsibility for actions. From politicians to family, you should get rewarded for good things and punished for bad things. Your book "From Rage to Responsibility," what is that about?

A: What I made a point to do is first to tell the truth in the book, because I realized that the truth is what is going to set us free. What I tried to do is to give white Americans an insight into what is really going on with black Americans -- the brainwashing that has taken place the last 50 years, the fact that we have not taken responsibility for ourselves within the black community, that we have allowed this to happen.

Q: The white liberal community is certainly complicit in that as well. They are saying, "You don't have to be responsible because we'll take care of you."

A: But, still, we should know better than that. You know we have not dealt with gang violence. We have not dealt with abortion. We have not dealt with racism within the black community -- with black-on-black racism. We have not dealt with adultery, the man-woman relationship. These are the things that I write about in the book. It is because we have not dealt with it that those things are out of control.

Q: Arguably, one of the most significant negative elements in the black community is the absence of a two-parent home.

A: Yes, sir. We can't blame anyone for that but ourselves. I mean, yes, liberal, elite whites want to keep us down -- and the Democratic white people want to keep us down to use us -- but if we didn't lay down and allow them to use us, they couldn't do it.

Q: They want you to need welfare so they can give you welfare to get your vote.

A: And that's what I write about in the book. I want to give white Americans clear insight so that they will take a stand, so they will stand up and say "No more." When black Americans read the book, they, too, will see themselves and realize that they need to get over their anger. They need to let their rage go because that's what they are being kept down with and used by. Jesse Jackson and others want to keep them angry so they can keep them down.

Q: The Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons are always angry whenever they are on the air. It is never their fault. It is never your fault. It's never the black community's fault. It is always somebody else's fault.

A: To be real honest with you, I don't believe Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are as angry as they pretend. But they want to show that to black Americans so that they can become angry.

Q: They're not angry as long as the checks keep clearing the bank.

A: That's right. How can you be angry when you are a millionaire? How can you be angry when your children have gone to the best of schools and done well in life? What is there to be angry about?

Q: How did Jesse Jackson accumulate his wealth?

A: I haven't been able to prove this in writing, but I personally believe that it's from keeping black America down.

Q: But how does that put money in his pocket?

A: What happens is they go to the government -- like after the last riot we had in L.A -- they went to the government and said we needed so many millions of dollars to rebuild the black community.

Q: Notwithstanding it was the black community which destroyed the community.

A: Right. So, the government gave these people the money but the money never trickled down to the people. It ends up in the politicians' hands, in the lawyers' hands, in the hands of many of the black preachers -- and the people never see it. So, they use black people that way to get wealth.

Then, they go to these businesses and demand that the white man employ black people, "and if you don't, we're going to sue you." And when they don't and they do get sued, that money never makes it into the hands of black people. It always ends up in the hands of the lawyers and the people who are encouraging that.

Q: A few weeks back, I interviewed the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, T.J. Rodgers. He has debated Jesse Jackson on a few occasions. At one point, Jesse was itching and moaning about how in the Silicon Valley, qualified blacks were not getting hired because of the color of their skin. First off, that is a crock. The Silicon Valley is probably the most diverse community in the country. Every ethnicity is represented there and it is all on merit. If you have the skills, they have a gig for you. Rodgers told Jesse, "You send me the resumes of those individuals who are qualified and we'll hire them." That was some time ago and he has yet to receive a single resume.

A: I write about this in the book, too. Jesse Jackson is like a bully in the playground. If you let him bully you every day and let him call you names and get away with what he can get away with, he's going to do it.

Q: During the election flap, he showed up at one of his rally-type events to rattle the troops and, for the first time in my memory, there was an opposing view being articulated -- loudly. And they didn't know how to deal with that so he packed up and went home.

A: And that is what is going to happen now if we continue to take a stand. If people will stand up, we will see a change. It's just that people have allowed it to happen for so long. In my book, I deal with race, with abortion, with education, with the man and woman relationship and immigration. And I tell the true story as to what is happening. I firmly believe that if people can know the truth, a change will come.

I also show people that they have to get over their rage -- because if someone can cause you to become angry, they can control you. Whether it is a wife to a husband or a husband to a wife, a friend or an enemy. If they can make you angry, they can control you -- and that's what's happening with black Americans and even white Americans now. They feel so pushed in a corner that now they are becoming angry. If they don't deal with that anger properly to overcome it, they are going to end up doing things wrong.