Original subtitles

? I know my parents loved me ?

? Stand behind me come what may ?

? I know now that I'm ready, yeah ?

? For I finally heard them say ?

? It's a different world ?

? Ooh ?

? Than where you come from ?

? Yes, it is now, yeah ?

? Here's our chance to make it ?

? And if we focus on our goal ?

? You can dish it, we can take it ?

? Hey, just remember That you've been told ?

? It's a different world ?

? It's a different world ?

? It's a different world ?

- ? It's a different world ? - ? Than where you come from ?

? Ooh ?

? Than where you come from ?

That's not what I said!

Well, that's what I heard.

- Isn't that what you heard?

Theressa, instead of running for student body president,

why don't you make pretzels?

Because all you do is twist everything I say.

Look, if you want to keep activities such as the film society and the campus paper,

we have to pay for them by raising student fees.

Listen to me! Listen to me. If we charge a dollar a head for each dance,

we can put that money towards a scholarship fund.

- Let's party with a purpose. - Uh-uh!

Elect Dwayne Wayne and pay to party.

That's not what I said.

Free parties, free parties. Free parties, free parties.

- Free parties, free parties. - What is all this noise?

Free parties-

Hush up or I'll call security.

Now, if you children want to act like crazy people,

go on TV with that Morton Downey, Jr.

Mr. Gaines, we're trying to debate the issues.

Does it look like a barbershop to you?

Now the only thing worth debating

is whether you're going out the front door, the back door,

or flunking out of here.

I was touched, man.

I was deeply moved by your forward thinking.

And your dedication to your fellow students.

- I'm glad somebody heard me. - Oh, I did.

Now, when you were talking about making people pay to party,

you didn't mean me, did you?

I especially meant you.

- Sir. - Cadet Johnson, at ease.

- Hey, Colonel Taylor. - Mr. Wayne, I've been looking for you.

I'm having my rug shampooed tomorrow afternoon.

I won't be able to be there to let the workmen in.

I was wondering if you could cover for me?

Oh, sir, I'm honored that you would trust me with your house.

I trusted you with my daughter. The same rules apply.

Don't touch anything.

- Yes, sir. - Okay.

Okay, what about a cassette tape?

- Freddie's crazy about Ziggy Marley. - She doesn't have a player.

- You do. - And how many times has she dropped it?

Mm. Jaleesa, we have to come up with something. Her birthday is tomorrow.

Well, whatever you do,

be sure you buy her something that doesn't come from Scarecrows "R" Us.

I think I know who's gonna be at assembly Sunday.

I was doing some filing in Dean Hewitt's office

when I came across this memo on his desk.

"Hold press release until Jackson party confirms."

- You know what that means, don't you? - It means you're a snoop.

It means that the Jacksons are having their reunion concert

right here at Hillman!

I'm so glad I didn't go to Berkeley.

Did you say Jackson concert?

Yes. The Jacksons are having their reunion concert

on the weekend of my 18th birthday.

Wait a minute. Michael's retired.

And Tito has no business getting back on that stage.

Then it can only be the most important Jackson in the country today�

La Toya.

Oh, God!

Please. That woman has more plastic in her than a Tonka truck.

She's not just a great entertainer. The woman has a lot to say.

She's been on every talk show,

she's an expert on reptiles.

Now, can any of us say we know as much as we should about snake life?

We know you.

Jaleesa, Whitley, I've got it, the perfect gift for Freddie.

A book about Zora Neale Hurston.

Ooh, just what she needs, another book.

- Hurston is her favorite writer. - I'm not surprised.

I heard she wore the same dress all through college, too.

I just bought that book.

It's so inspiring. Are you reading it?

I am now.

Brother, you are going about this all wrong.

What am I doing wrong?

You're campaigning on the issues. It's killing you, man.

If you want to win, ditch the substance and come up with some style.

Theressa says you don't like dances,

come up with a dance. Do "the Dwayne."

I'm not gonna boogaloo my way into office.

Let me put it to you this way.

If you weren't my partner, I'd be casting my ballot for Theressa.

So you better get up off of that thing and get on the good foot.

"Same rules apply.

Don't touch anything."

I wouldn't want to touch these overgrown Ginsu knives anyway.

Ooh, this is pretty-

The Bengal tiger.

The most feared animal in all the land.

But he is no match for the Black ninja.

And his Ginsu knife of death.

What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?

Come, Ginsu.

Let us see what other adventures lie beyond the gates of the golden temple.

- Hi. - Hello.

- How do you do? - Is Colonel Taylor in?

No, but he told me to expect you. The rugs are right here.

Wow, you guys look sharp. There must be a lot of money in dirty rugs.

I beg your pardon?

Whoa!

You look�

Oh, my goodness!

Oh, man!

I know you must be tired of hearing this, but you look just like Jesse Jackson.

I� I don't know who your partners are,

but if you put your face on a truck, you'll get a lot more business.

Didn't mean to surprise you. I'm early.

You know something? You sound like him, too.

I am him. I'm Jesse Jackson.

Get out of here. You ain't no Jesse Jackson.

Jesse Jackson, first of all, is a lot taller than you are.

Second of all, Jesse Jackson runs Operation PUSH,

not Operation Push-the-vacuum.

I'll get the bags, Reverend.

Thank you.

Uh, why did he call you "Reverend"?

I used to be a country preacher before I got into the rug business.

You're still a country preacher.

Beanie!

Hey, Jesse.

Jesse! Jesse Jackson?

The Jesse Jackson that ran for president?

Yes, yes, Mr. Wayne. You weren't supposed to be here until dinnertime.

I'm early because my flight actually took off on time for a change.

The Rainbow Coalition Jesse Jackson? The Jesse Jackson that baptized Mike Tyson?

I'm the only person who ever took him down,

held him down, almost drowned him.

I worked for you! I voted for you!

- I was� I was� - Yes, yes.

This is Dwayne Wayne, one of my brightest students.

You know, he's also thrown his hat into the political ring.

Yeah, I'm running for president� Uh, president of student council.

When I was at North Carolina A&T, I was also president of the student council.

It's a good thing I don't have to run against him.

Uh, Mr. Wayne, I think Mr. Jackson would probably like to freshen up.

- Good to see you, Beanie. - Down the hall on the left.

Good to meet you, Mr. Jackson.

Keep hope alive!

Keep hope alive!

Listen to me. Jesse Jackson is staying at Colonel Taylor's house.

They grew up together. He's speaking at the assembly tomorrow.

Jesse Jackson and La Toya Jackson here in the same weekend?

What are the odds on that?

Cool it, brother. The only way you're gonna see La Toya

is in that poster over your bed.

Damn! I was really looking forward to discussing her views on world affairs.

Guess I better go break the bad news to the fellas.

Voters of Hillman,

for your political pleasure, I give to you

the current and future president of your student government,

Theressa Stone, doing the Stone boogie.

? Do you feel the beat? Do you like the heat? ?

? It's the cold stone boogie I can't be beat ?

? A vote for me means victory ?

? It's like banking all your money For security ?

? So ignore that same old tired refrain ?

? Don't vote for Dwayne He's a wallet drain ?

That should be you out there.

? Don't vote for Dwayne He's a wallet drain ?

Hey!

No.

Don't be blinded by the flash.

What you saw was a woman dancing around the issues.

That's it.

Because, every year, the federal government cuts funding for education.

That's right.

My student council will make sure that Hillman

has a solid present and a solid future.

All right. Now that's a thought.

A vote for me is a vote

for the slamming-est, jamming-est homecoming Hillman has ever seen!

Brother, call mission control, because your campaign is about to blast off.

Brother, this mission is scrubbed.

I don't know if I like the sound of this.

Well, maybe you'd like it better like this.

? I'm out, I'm out ?

? There's nothing left to shout about ?

? I quit, I quit ?

? I'm through with it ?

It's a good thing I didn't let you dance. You'd have lost all support.

Ron, read my lips. I'm out.

Nobody on this campus cares about anything important.

This is the "me" generation. So I'm gonna take care of me.

Let everybody put on their clown suits and party.

Brother, look, I know just how you feel.

If I got humiliated every time I opened my mouth in public,

it would get to me, too.

But, look, I have in my hand the first nail in Theressa Stone's coffin.

Look at that.

You, me, and Jesse.

I would've got a better picture of you if I had time,

but I came out pretty good.

I want you to dig a hole,

and I want you to climb down into that hole,

and I want you to take this poster with you.

Now if I had known you were gonna be this ungrateful,

I wouldn't have spent the last two hours putting these up all over campus.

Now I have to spend the next two hours taking them down.

Beanie, those smothered pork chops are as good as your Grandmama Tilda's.

Yeah, and I can still put them away, too.

And still skinny as a beanpole. Where does it go?

Oh, shoot, man, you're just jealous.

- Check it out. - My, my.

- Smooth. Who's that? - Stu Gardner.

Figured out what you gonna say to the students tomorrow?

I might just pretend I'm in Washington and give them my first inaugural address.

I'm dying to use it.

Oh, boy, here we go again.

You know, people have been returning things to me they never even borrowed?

- You're just popular. - Yeah.

Be with you in a minute.

Colonel Taylor, I'm not staying.

Oh, Reverend Jackson�

I just hope you haven't eaten yet,

because I brought you some of my special Rainbow Coalition meat loaf.

Yeah! It's got ground pork,

ground chicken and ground round.

And it looks real pretty when you slice it.

Thank you, friend.

Oh, the name is Gaines,

but, please, call me Vernon. See, now, everybody does.

Yeah, have a little taste while it's still hot.

Vernon, Vernon, we just ate.

Oh, now, a man his size has always got room for more.

- And it's good, too. Thank you. - Yeah? Well, you're welcome.

Now, looky here. It's better with a potato.

- Oh, no, I'll just put this in the fridge. - Oh, no!

Not until you take a picture of me and the Reverend.

- And the meatloaf. - Vernon!

You don't mind, do you, Reverend? Of course you don't.

You just lucky that my Velma isn't here.

You know, I remember the time we met Billy Eckstein in Atlantic city.

Come on, come on.

Velma nearly talked the man to death all over the casino.

Smile. Smile.

- She sounded like a slot machine. - Smile.

I was hoping somebody would put a nickel in her mouth.

- Ah, thank you, Reverend. - Thank you for the meatloaf, too.

Oh, my good- Look at the time!

- I got to get out of here. - Thank you for the meatloaf.

Don't mention it,

because I'm gonna send you and the missus a recipe

and a picture of us, because I'm making double prints.

- I understand. - Well, now Colonel�

And I won't tell nobody the Reverend's in your house.

Good-bye, Vernon.

I'm sorry, man. You're just a hard secret to keep.

I'm not complaining. This is mighty good meat loaf, buddy.

Now I bet you that's Vernon coming back to give you his Rainbow Coalition custard.

Mr. Wayne, I haven't seen this much of you since you were dating my daughter.

May I talk to the Reverend, please? I owe him an apology.

Dwayne Wayne says he's sorry. Now good night.

It's okay, Beanie.

Oh, all right.

Dwayne, what do you have to apologize about?

This.

I know that there's a perfectly ridiculous explanation for this.

Well, I wasn't doing well in my campaign for student government president,

and an overzealous supporter made this up thinking it might get me over.

- That's this guy in the middle, right? That's him.

I took down as many as I could, sir.

When I drop out of the race officially,

I'll make sure everyone knows you had nothing to do about it.

"Dwayne Wayne. He is somebody."

What was our campaign about?

Nothing anybody cared about.

All these people care about is a jamming, slamming homecoming.

Sounds like you're about as popular as I was in my first campaign.

I wouldn't carry one dorm. I barely carried my best friend.

So that's why you're dropping out?

Well, yeah. I mean, only a fool would keep taking these beatings.

I know that feeling, Beanie.

Oh, but you're Jesse Jackson. People listen to you.

That's because I wouldn't give up.

I was not a chump, I would not surrender. I stood up, and you must stand up.

- Right, Beanie? - Amen to that.

Nobody cares if I set up a scholarship fund,

or try to save student activities.

No one else is thinking about the future.

So why should you?

You wanna be a leader? If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

You can't cook with cold grease. You got to stand up to be a leader.

Reverend, I've tried! It's not my fault. No one is listening to me.

You got to stand up. You can't surrender.

A man can't be heard if he stops talking.

- Stand up. - Amen to that, too.

If we don't get a move on, we're gonna be sitting so far away

that the Reverend will look like a little bug.

We have half an hour.

Ooh, I hope we get close enough to shake his hand.

Oh, he's such an incredible speaker. So brilliant.

So handsome.

Ladies, we are not going to a Bobby Brown concert.

But it's our prerogative to get a good look at the man. Hello!

Ladies, get a grip.

Now, this is a unique opportunity for all of us.

Don't embarrass yourselves.

More importantly, don't embarrass me.

You'd think they never met anybody famous before.

It's him!

Lettie, I'd like for you to meet a friend of mine.

Reverent Jackson, Lettie Bostic.

Lettie is the director here at Gilbert Hall.

I, uh�

Uh, what I think she's trying to say

is, "Nice to meet you."

Yes. Very nice.

Very, very, very, very nice.

Lettie, get a grip.

Actually, she's got a pretty good grip already.

I first met this man many years ago,

in my grandmama's kitchen.

Oh, yeah, he was the first to sit down and the last one to get up.

Some things never change.

If I had known he was going to become a world leader,

well, I would have offered him my peach cobbler.

Ladies and gentlemen,

my friend, and yours,

the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Thank you for the introduction, Beanie.

Earlier today, as I contemplated this lecture tonight,

I thought about a young man who had been in a rather sad

and melancholy mood,

feeling insignificant, impotent, worthless, that he did not count.

As I thought about him, it occurred to me that his real problem was

he felt that as one person,

he could not make a difference.

The change in America

that has taken place in the last 30 years, has occurred because somebody thought

they could make a difference.

That's right.

The change, it did not come from Wall Street,

or the White House,

or the Congress or the courts.

They were always started by some young person

who thought that they could, in fact, make a difference.

Rosa Parks got on a bus one day.

The sign above the driver's head read,

"The coloreds seat from the rear.

"Whites seat from the front.

Violators will be punished by law."

She refused to go to the back of the bus.

- Yes, she did. - And she was arrested.

Dr. King went to her rescue, a 26-year-old student,

and told her, "Better that you walk in dignity than ride in shame."

One person can make a difference.

In 1957, nine students at Little Rock Central High in Arkansas

went to school one day led by the Army. They refused to bow.

- They made a difference. - Made a difference.

In the next years, young America died that we might live.

Medgar Evers was killed in cold blood

about this right to vote.

Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, two Jews and an African-American

were bulldozed to death with their eyes wide open

in Philadelphia, Mississippi, about this right to vote.

Jimmy Lee Jackson, 15-year-old African-American student

shot and killed in Marion, Alabama,

about this right to vote.

Four darling little girls blown up in a church

in Birmingham, Alabama, one Sunday morning,

all about the right to vote. They made a difference.

Made a difference. Yes.

You must make a difference.

Whenever students are sober,

and sane and sensitive

and put hope in their brains and not dope in their veins,

they can always make a difference.

Yes, they can!

Yes, they can! Yes, they can!

Because they died, your generation has the power.

John Kennedy was elected by a margin of 112,000 votes�

less than one vote per precinct. Everybody counts.

Nixon beat Humphrey by 550,000 votes.

Carter beat Ford by a million-seven.

Fewer than three million votes elected three presidents in 16 years.

Today, there are 3.2 million high school seniors alone graduating.

They should come cross that stage with a diploma in one hand,

and a voter card in the other, because they can make a difference.

Twelve million college students must vote.

You have the power.

You must now have the attitude.

Yes!

It's not my aptitude, but my attitude

that determines my altitude or how high I will go.

My mind is a pearl. I can learn anything in the world.

Just because it rains, I don't have to drown.

I may have been born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me.

I can rise above my circumstance.

Hands that once picked cotton can now pick presidents.

You want to free Mandela and free South Africa,

let's vote about it.

Let's vote about it.

Let's vote about it.

Oh.

You came so close.

Another 315 votes, and you'd have been president.

I demand a recount.

It's not important whether I won or lost.

Important thing is I had something to say, I said it. I'm gonna keep on saying it.

- Good for you. - I wish I'd won!

Well, Freddie, we looked and we looked for the right birthday present,

but we just couldn't find anything.

Until now.

Hit it, fellas.

Male strippers!

No, we got this idea from Reverend Jackson.

- ? Happy 18th birthday ? - ? Happy birthday, Freddie Brooks ?

- ? This present for you ? - ? Is more special than it looks ?

- ? Eighteen candles on a cake ? - ? What a difference you can make ?

- ? Know the issue ? - ? Make a choice ?

- ? It's time to cast your ballot ? - ? Let 'em hear your voice ?

- ? But you can't vote ? - ? 'Cause it will be hard ?

- ? If you do not have ? - ? A registration card ?

An application for your own voter registration card.

Happy birthday, Freddie.

I don't know how to tell you guys this,

but I filled out my registration papers this morning.

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