Jesse Got His Cadillac Escalade Rims Stripped while Promoting Green Jobs in Motor City

When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly — thanks to some car thieves.

The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.  Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.

Jackson, who led the march along with United Auto Workers President Bob King, said there was nothing contradictory about renting an SUV and promoting green jobs.

“We were promoting a car manufacturer and representing the American worker, whatever car they chose,” Jackson said. “My wife has a Smart Car, but for the purposes that we were traveling, the car was — it fit the bill.”

One Detroit columnist disagreed. “Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy,” Detroit News columnist Henry Payne wrote. “While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.”more