Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a good time to recall how Jesse Jackson helped build the post-King movement. Unlike King, Jackson’s contributions have been underestimated. His role in building Black political power is often associated with Barack Obama. But Jackson’s transformation of the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination process, leadership in boosting Black voting and breaking down racist political boundaries laid the groundwork for Obama’s election.
Abby Phillip’s new book, A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power, offers a vivid reminder of the civil rights leader’s accomplishments. Phillip traces Jackson’s story from his civil rights activism in college through his 1988 presidential race.
She does not shy away from the negatives. For example, while his open desire to emulate King bothered many of King’s allies, he notoriously boosted their view by wearing a shirt with King’s blood for days after his assassination. She also shows how Jackson often ignored group processes and was not a team player
But Phillips shows that it was Jackson, not Ralph Abernathy or other King allies from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who best understood how to chart the movement’s future. The movement had shifted from winning basic civil rights in the south to the more complex and divisive economic and racial justice issues in the north. Jackson’s base in Chicago gave him the perfect vantage point to focus the movement on these issues.
Operation PUSH
Jackson initially became best known as founder and leader of Operation PUSH. It was a brilliant strategy to get corporations to hire more blacks and patronize black businesses. Jackson used blacks spending power to demand these outcomes, which also built his future political support among black businesses.
Jackson’s decision to enter politics was inevitable. He was a man who sought the limelight and who wanted to call the shots. Yet these qualities led other black politicians to reject him. Phillip shows how Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign was openly scorned by top black elected officials like Mayor Maynard Jackson of Atlanta and New York City congressmember Charles Rangel.
These black officials echoed the the white establishment’s anti-Jackson attacks based on his alleged incapacity to defeat President Reagan. Jackson saw these attacks as black politicians having made deals with the party’s white power structure; it encouraged him to continue his campaign.
Jackson’s efforts to increase black voter registration and revise delegate selection rules to fairly account for the black vote were opposed until Jackson forced the Party’s action. A Democratic Party establishment that insisted Jackson could not win were all behind the nomination of former Vice-President Walter Mondale. Mondale only won a single state in the 1984 election.
Jackson was better prepared for the 1988 campaign. This time black political leaders lined up to support him. San Francisco’s Willie Brown was the national chair of Jackson’s campaign, reflecting its top-caliber leadership. Unlike 1984 when Mondale was the clear frontrunner, the 1988 Democratic race was wide open.
Yet the Democratic Party’s leadership continued its stop-Jessie campaign. Party leaders believed they could defeat George H. W. Bush in 1988 but not if Jackson were the nominee. Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition reflected a campaign that was broader than before. It now attracted progressives, voter of color, and even farmers across class and geographic lines
Jackson’s 1988 campaign was growing. After Jackson won southern primaries, Democratic Party insiders and New York City Mayor Koch teamed up to ensure Michael Dukakis would defeat Jackson in the critical New York primary (though Jackson won New York City). Dukakis also beat Jackson in Michigan, effectively ensuring his nomination.
But it was Jackson, not Dukakis, who spoke for the millions of low-income and working-class Americans whose votes the Democrats would need in November. No speech has better expressed the ideals of the Democratic Party than Jackson’s oration at the 1988 Democratic Convention. I remember getting a tape of the speech as a donation premium from the Bay Area’s KPFA radio.
Dukakis’ defeat could have led Democratic Party leaders to favor a more populist and progressive nominee in 1992. But Party leaders instead backed “New Democrat” Bill Clinton. Phillip reminds us that Clinton’s infamous attack on black singer Sister Souljah—he compared her to Klan leader David Duke—occurred at a Rainbow Coalition conference. With Jackson sitting next to him on the stage, “Clinton was showing whites he would not be captive to racial radicals.”
If Jackson cared only about his own power, as many maintained, he would have ignored Clinton’s comment. He could have used his silence as a chit to get something from the eventual president. But Jackson instead publicly backed Souljah. He accused Clinton of staging “a very well-planned sneak attack, without the courage to confront but with a calculation to embarrass him.”
Souljah saw Clinton as “using Bush’s ‘Willie Horton’ playbook against his fellow Democrats to burnish his reputation among moderate white voters.” She was right. A legacy media hostile to Jackson routinely praised Clinton for his “Sister Souljah moment.”
Jackson’s Image
Prior to reading this book my dominant feeling toward Jesse Jackson was disappointment. Disappointment that after building a broad-based Rainbow Coalition he allowed it to die; and did so after pledging during his 1988 presidential campaign to expand the Coalition’s power.
I’ve often written about my greater disappointment at Barack Obama’s dismantling of the Obama for America grassroots organizing structure that brought him the presidency (See, for example, “Will Obama’s New ‘Organizing for America Succeed,” January 27, 2009). Politicians routinely sacrifice organizational building; I’ve been wrong to hold this so strongly against Jackson.
Jesse Jackson inspired Democrats to “Keep Hope Alive.” His “I Am Somebody” chant energized millions. For all of his personal faults, he was the defining progressive figure for roughly two decades.
Thanks Abby Phillip for reminding us of Jesse Jackson’s under-appreciated legacy.
