Jesse Jackson: 'We Will Not Surrender'

"It's not about Democrats, it's about democracy," Jackson claimed in an interview on NBC's "Today" show. "We want the vote of Americans to count."

Jackson said it was up to President-elect Bush to extend an olive branch to him and other blacks.

"He must overcome the illegitimacy that this court placed upon him," Jackson said. Bush does not have "the consent of the governed," he claimed.

"We have difficulty certifying Bush on moral grounds, but having said that, we must somehow figure out a way beyond our pain to heal our wounds," Jackson said.

"I am open to relate to any American president," Jackson said later, "because the stakes are so high for us. After all, we must fight for health care. We must fight for a foreign policy that's fair. We must fight for first-class education for all Americans ... so I will meet with the president and always try to do what's right for America, but the burden's really upon him."

"The highest court has had some very low moments," Jackson said, using the 1857 Dred Scott case an example of a low moment. In Dred Scott, the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen. The ruling ignored the fact that black men in five of the original states had been full voting citizens dating back to 1776.

Another low moment for the high court came Tuesday night, Jackson said, when the justices "disenfranchised Americans," as Jackson put it.

Jackson said that one way or another, there will be a recount of disputed ballots, as news organizations, leftist groups and others get a look at the ballots under Florida's open records law.

And when that recount happens, Jackson claimed, "It will be revealed that Al Gore in fact won the national and the Florida count. ... We can afford to lose an election, but not lose the franchise of Americans, and that is really what is at stake here."

Jackson again decried alleged obstacles he says black voters faced on Election Day, including broken machines, police roadblocks and names left off voting lists.

"We will continue our quest to get the Department of Justice to act," Jackson said.

While noting that Al Gore's legal options are reduced in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Jackson said activists' options will continue, including a massive demonstration around the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, which just happens to fall near Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.