Jesse Jackson, liberal activists launch voter registration drives in Ferguson

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (C) greets members of the "Outcast" motorcycle club before a vigil in the neighborhood where teenager Michael Brown was shot, in Ferguson, Missouri, August 16, 2014. Tensions had temporarily cooled on Thursday night but by Friday evening, protesters were again swarming through a residential and retail district in the small town outside St. Louis that has become the site of repeated clashes between protestors and police forces. The unrest erupted after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, 28, shot and killed Brown shortly after noon last Saturday as Brown and a friend walked down a street that runs through an apartment complex where Brown's grandmother lives. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CRIME LAW TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTR42O0M

Jesse Jackson and other liberal activists are rolling out voter registration efforts as part of a coordinated left-wing push to sign up voters during the wave of violent protests engulfing Ferguson, Missouri in the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting.

Racial activist and former Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson met with St. Louis clergy Monday to plan a formal Ferguson voter registration drive.

“Five thousand new voters will transform the city from top to bottom” Jackson explained during a stop at a Ferguson McDonald’s, where he discussed voter registration with local denizens.

Liberal activists — including from the George Soros-funded Center for Constitutional Rights — have promoted voter registration booths at multiple locations in Ferguson, including at the roadside memorial marking the spot where Brown was shot.

Al Sharpton said in a Ferguson rally speech Sunday that the change could come at the ballot box. “Nobody can go to the White House until they stop by our house,” declared Sharpton, who personally briefed President Obama before Obama’s infamous 2012 speech during America’s last major racial crisis, in which Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Obama’s Ferguson remarks called for calm, but noted that there’s “No excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests.” Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder is on his way to Ferguson, where his much-maligned civil rights unit is already on the ground interceding in the conflict.

Activists have also linked the Ferguson standoff to calls for voter registration in the mainstream media.

“Elected officials don’t have to care about black citizens as long as they don’t fear them at the ballot box,” wrote Emory University law professor Dorothy A. Brown in an editorial for CNN. “Every member of the city council who has sat by silently while citizens were treated like second-class citizens should be voted out of office; Michael Brown’s death must result in one of the largest voter registration drives in the history of the state of Missouri. That would be a lasting legacy for such a senseless and untimely death.”

Follow Patrick on Twitter