A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights - Reviews

Reviews

In a review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Michael Eric Dyson described the book as "intellectually accomplished and remarkably insightful". He views Jackson's eight new amendments as "the political backbone and intellectual infrastructure for the expression of a new politics of race and class that strengthen the status of all suffering Americans." He encourages understanding the book because it provides a fresh social perspective to addresses current fundamental American political and racial problems.

Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Playboy editor John Thomas described the amendments as sensible, but pointed out that some view them as an attempt to legislate policy decisions. Thomas perceived the benefit of the plan to be the fact that the force of the constitution would uphold the amendments, and that this would compel actions to support both political promises and the constitutional tenets.

At one stop on the book tour associated with the publication and release of the book at the David A. Clarke School of Law of the University of the District of Columbia, Jackson's message was perceived as saying that American history can be studied as an analysis of race, but that economics and the tension between states’ rights and federal rights are the true basis of a domestic history revolving around pursuit of economic development, political power, and personal freedom. He then advanced the theory that these pursuits would most be most readily attained by adopting a set of new constitutional amendments, guaranteeing rights primarily grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the U.S. has ratified. Each is discussed in a separate chapter: the rights to quality health care, housing, education, a clean environment, fair taxes, full employment, equality for women, and the right to vote.