Isn't there also a crisis, though, in black leadership within the Democratic Party? The most prominent black political figures in the country are Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

I don't agree. I don't think anyone is a follower of Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I think that the media [confuses] leading blacks with black leaders. Yeah, Colin Powell is a leading black, but I've never met anybody who's a follower of Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. And I think that's a misnomer. In the '60s, there was a Republican black in the U.S. Senate, Ed Brooke, while Dr. King and Roy Wilkins and them were out there. There's nothing new about having a prominent black with the Republicans. Ed Brooks was on the other side of the civil rights movement. So I think that the media fools themselves with this idea of the new leaders. Of course, they have name recognition. But that doesn't mean that's politically where we are.

Powell's political views don't mirror the majority of black Americans ...

Absolutely not.

So is that part of what's motivating your run for the presidency -- to get national recognition for leaders who you feel more closely represent black America?

Absolutely. I am absolutely trying to mirror not only black America, but progressive America. Why did 3 million people go with Ralph Nader? The discussion in the Democratic Party is going with folks on the right, nobody's talking about the people who left the party because we weren't progressive enough. If we had 2 of those 3 million, we wouldn't have been counting hanging chads in Florida.

I said to some leaders of the Democratic Party, George Bush got 5 percent of the black vote in 2000. Do you think that after three to four years of daily doses of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice that vote will go up? They said probably. I said, well, what's your African-American strategy to counteract that? You have none. So what you fear in me running may end up being the best thing for you. The evidence is, turnout went down in black America in the midterm elections. What was their strategy for turnout? They used Bill Clinton. Now I'm not attacking Bill Clinton; I think Bill Clinton is very popular. But obviously you're going to need more than that to energize black votes and Latino votes.

Bill Clinton and I spoke at the same rally the night before Election Day in New York. I was joking with him, saying if I win, I'll be the first black president, not him. He was the first beige president. They used to joke he was the first black president, but I think [Democratic National Committee chairman] Terry McAuliffe actually believed it, and used that as his strategy, and it backfired big time.

Do you expect a lot of talk about the rivalry between yourself and Jesse Jackson?

I think that there will be, but I started with Jesse. I lived through Jesse. In the end, I'm not running against Jesse Jackson. I'll be running against Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and John Edwards. There will be some of that comparison, but in the long run, I think it will take care of itself. I don't consider myself a rival to Jesse Jackson. I consider myself an extension of him, I'm a student of Jesse Jackson. I hope to do in 2004 what he did in the '80s.

But Jackson had roots in the South, having been born in South Carolina, and being involved with the civil rights movement. Given your roots in the Northeast, what is your message to the South?

My message there has been that we as a community cannot sit by and allow a war to go down where we're going to be on the front lines. We cannot allow public education to take a back seat, because that's how we're going to educate a majority of our children whether there's vouchers or not, and this whole thing of conceding to privatization of education hurts us more than anybody in the country.

Who has had more of a track record in confronting racism? No candidate can compete with me there. And in terms of the whole quest to redefine what black life and black culture should be about. This whole moving kids away from drugs, violence, misogynist-type of mentality. And that's why I've been packing places.

Jesse was born in the South, but when Jesse ran, he was based in Chicago. The difference is, in the '80s, the culture and style was more Southern black. Even the South now acts more urban. A lot of urban blacks have moved back to the South. And now with hip-hop and other [trends], we've gone from an agrarian, gospel culture to a Northern hip-hop culture. In many ways, I personify that, from my James Brown roots all the way to [Def Jam Records founder] Russell Simmons and all the people promoting me to run. If you live in Atlanta now, you're as New York as New York is.

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