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Rev. Jackson said Sunday that African-American leaders want to engage with the president because there is 'unfinished business.'

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A longtime civil rights leader called Sunday for the nation’s first African-American president to be more engaged with the black community and for greater government action to address the needs of the poor and unemployed - especially those in the African American community.

Rev. Jesse Jackson said that he and other African-American leaders “want to engage more fully with [Obama] because there is a lot of unfinished business.” While Jackson noted that the president has met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and with some African-American mayors, Jackson said he has yet to sit down with Obama.

Jackson said on CNN’s State of the Union that he was confident, however, “at some point in time, we will meet.”
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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Congressman Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that “it’s disturbing” that former Vice President Dick Cheney may have ordered the CIA to withhold information from Congress.

Related: Cheney and alleged secret CIA program 'a problem.' Senator says

The refusal to disclose a top-secret program to the few members of Congress authorized to review the sensitive material was “absolutely not” appropriate, Murphy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday’s State of the Union.

Though he has recently been briefed by CIA chief Leon Panetta on the nature of the secret program, he said that because the information is top secret he would not talk about it on TV or in private.

On the issue of gays in the military, Murphy said that now is the “best time to move” on repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Thirteen thousand servicemen and women have been discharged under the highly controversial policy, he noted.

Though he believes President Obama supports repealing the policy, he said he understands it’s up to Congress to change it.

“It was an act of Congress that put this discriminatory law in place. It will take an act of Congress to repeal it.”