NEW YORK -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson is pressing major financial institutions to ante up trillions of dollars for investments in minority businesses and neighborhoods.
Jackson said Wednesday it's time to harness the legal commitments of the federal Community Reinvestment Act, a law requiring banks and insurance companies to lend money and make other investments in neighborhoods where they do business, especially low-income areas.Strengthened community reinvestment requirements are part of a recently passed financial overhaul bill, which wiped out Depression-era restrictions that prevented mergers between banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies.
"We must see to it that the powerful business proposition created for the private sector leads to an equally powerful commitment to the communities in which they do business," Jackson said at a news conference previewing his third Wall Street conference, to be held in January.
That commitment means, Jackson said, not only aiding housing but using minority advertising agencies, media and construction firms and minority lawyers and accountants.
"By using the full range of our economic services, we enhance our communities' economic development," Jackson said.
President Clinton is expected to address the conference, scheduled for Jan. 12-14. Also scheduled to attend are Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt. They will join Sanford I. Weill, the co-chairman of Citigroup, and C. Michael Armstrong, the chairman and chief executive of AT&T, who participated in the news conference Wednesday.
Jackson also announced new initiatives targeting churchgoers and children.
The conference will launch "One Thousand Churches Connected," an economic literacy initiative in which the New York Stock Exchange will train 35 ministers at a time, four times a year in "the science of the market."
The idea is to encourage members of minority groups to take advantage of investing opportunities such as stocks and mutual funds.
Those ministers will be able to follow the example of the Rev. James Meeks of Chicago, who has been preaching the gospel of "Debt-Free by 2003." Meeks is targeting 1,000 churches "to teach them financial freedom," by investing and cutting debt, he said at the news conference.
"People know the pastor, people trust the pastor," Meeks said. Now, Meeks said, he's going to "teach pastors to teach their congregations."
The coalition also supports the Stock Market Game sponsored by the Securities Industry Association, a 10-week course in which participants make mock investments and manage portfolios. More than 700,000 people have taken the course.
Next week, Jackson will give $200 to each of 60 Chicago children who completed the course so their parents can buy them real shares. McDonald's Corp. is supposed to match the money Jackson puts up with shares of its stock.
"We want more people to have stocks, rather than just stockings, by their Christmas trees during the next holiday season," Jackson said.