Even as a child, Jimmie L. Daniels could always see through the thinly veiled shade that was pulled down between the black community and all things white. The vision was enough for him to catch a glimpse of the universal human similarities and question the inexcusable inequities and discrimination.
Indeed, as a young boy being raised in rural Mississippi during the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement, he always bristled at the tensions and hatred that separated hearts.
Eradicating racial stereotypes now consumes the clergyman, business owner and father of three who lives in Hoffman Estates.
That’s because Operation PUSH, the nation’s largest minority rights group, has reached into the northwest suburbs for its next leader: Daniels. Last November, Daniels, a six-year board member, was sworn in as the national president of the organization founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1971.
With much the same idealism he strived for in childhood and with a deep-seated desire to snuff out prejudice and its ignorance, Daniels says he promises to restructure and refocus Operation PUSH from a militant city street-level group to a more subtle advocate of economic independence for minorities. He says he will call on suburban civic and business leaders to move with him into the civil rights forefront.
Specifically, Daniels says he hopes to tap suburban business leaders to employ an ethnically diverse work force and to “reach back into the city to help educate and economically empower minorities.”
“Our message is, `Let’s go back and extend a hand to help pick up some of those who have been left behind,”‘ says Daniels, 47, who will oversee Operation PUSH’s 39 offices and 100,000 members from its Chicago headquarters. “I want to say to suburban corporate America, `Let’s look back into our inner cities; let’s reform welfare by creating new jobs there.’ Why not reinvest in the West Side of Chicago instead of creating 3,000 new jobs out in Harvard, Illinois (where Motorola is building a new plant)?”
On a recent Friday morning, Daniels is dressed impeccably in pin stripes and flanked by his wife of 26 years, Dolores, and 5-year-old daughter, Danielle-who, he’s quick to point out, is “Daddy’s girl, and the boss of the house” and who shares his Dec. 7 birthday. (The Danielses also have two sons: Jimmie Jr., 25, a financial planner who lives in Schaumburg, and Kenneth, 23, an editorial assistant who lives in Summit and sings in his father’s church choir.)
As he sits in the family room of his spacious home in the upscale Charlemagne subdivision in Hoffman Estates, he seems to exemplify the successful, “new-generation” African-American-a description he himself uses-who he hopes will provide the momentum and mentorship for others through Operation PUSH.
His soft-spoken manner reflects a pastoral nature, and he speaks of moving the emphasis of Operation PUSH away from boycotts and street demonstrations. But later that day, he will join New York civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and boxing promoter Don King outside the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago for a rally and prayer vigil for former boxing champ Mike Tyson, who on this day is again appealing his three-year rape sentence.
Indeed, the interview is punctuated with several calls from Operation PUSH headquarters; during one conversation, he gives his statement on the Tyson rally to be released to the media later that day: “We tend to think Mike Tyson is innocent and support his appeal from a moral standpoint. . . . You don’t go to a hotel room at 2 a.m. for Sunday school. . . .”
The rally and prayer vigil? Just part of his duties as Operation PUSH spokesman, he explains, quickly steering the conversation back to his economic push. Protests, he says, are not what he wants to do, or talk about.
Serving as a model of how to provide minorities with economic power will be the firm he founded and runs, Total Facilities Maintenance in Wood Dale, a 9-year-old janitorial services company with 70 employees.
The entrepreneurial spark for the company came “from the spiritual,” Daniels says, an outgrowth of his ministry as pastor for the 500-member Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Summit.
“A large number of our church members had been laid off, and we started to look for ways we could go beyond the spiritual needs and minister to the whole person,” says Daniels, who received an undergraduate degree in theology from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. “Empowerment through employment, showing people that they can work, they can accomplish, they can regain their self-esteem-that is what I want Operation PUSH to be all about.”
But, given the small ethnic base of the suburbs, Daniels and observers agree his new post will be a challenge. In Hoffman Estates, for example, where he has lived for 15 years, 90 percent of the population is white, 5 percent Oriental, 2 1/2 percent Hispanic and only 2 1/2 percent African-American, according to 1990 U.S. Census Bureau figures.
“His biggest obstacle is the limited exposure suburban people have with minorities,” says Wil Parker, assistant village manager in Hoffman Estates and a board member for the Minority Economic Resources Council in Des Plaines. “But given his strong interpersonal skills and business acumen, he’s probably the person who will be able to break through those barriers. He’s a very personable, likable guy and, seeing that he is also a successful businessman, he will be the representative who will put Operation PUSH in a place in the suburbs where it can be received well.”
Daniels’ lifelong friend Bobby Trotter, owner of ERA Advance Realty in Chicago, agrees. “Even though prejudice was the norm when we were growing up, Jimmie always managed to work around it,” says Trotter, who grew up with Daniels in Mississippi. “He was always a leader, whether it was organizing a choir group for church or getting blacks and whites to cooperate in little things. He always bucked at the stereotypes and believed that anyone could get his share of the American dream if he worked hard enough. He did it himself, and he was great at getting others to do this, too.”
Daniels, who served as president of Operation PUSH’s northwest suburban chapter, says he moved to Hoffman Estates to “follow the business opportunities other blacks were following.” It was his suburban connections-being pastor of a south suburban church, his economic ties as owner of a west suburban firm, his northwest suburban residency and his affiliation with the Hoffman Estates Police Department as chaplain-that led to his selection as national president of Operation PUSH, according to Rev. Willie Barrow, chairman of Operation PUSH.
“Rev. Daniels will create a very stable foundation for Operation PUSH because he is a strong family man, a religious leader and a good business man,” Barrow says. “When you have all that, you are on the road to victory. His unique background in being raised in the South, coming to Chicago and knowing the inner city here and then living in the suburbs makes him a very balanced leader. He will know how to continue the struggle for civil rights from all walks of life.”
Certainly not forgotten on Daniels’ agenda for a more diverse Operation PUSH is his own deeply rooted belief in freedom, which grew from vivid memories of his childhood.
“I could never understand (how) the whites could be our friends in private, we’d play ball together or sit in their kitchens-our relatives cleaned and cooked for them-and watch TV together,” Daniels says. “But in public, we couldn’t get on the buses together or act like we knew each other. We were buddies, just kids who laughed and played together, but being buddies wasn’t accepted publicly. . . . But I always knew there was something terribly wrong with this. I couldn’t and wouldn’t accept the hatred I knew really didn’t exist.”
Early in his struggle for equality, he turned to the Scriptures for his strength and as a haven from discrimination and hatred.
The Operation PUSH position-which is a one-year term that can be renewed indefinitely, according to Barrow-has brought some changes in Daniels’ life. Daniels will temporarily turn over the reins of Total Facilities Maintenance to his wife, Dolores, who will serve as president of the firm. Daniels will still act as a consultant and help oversee operations, but not on a daily basis. He will remain as pastor of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and will do the weekend church services, but the day-to-day operations will be handled by four assistant ministers.
Daniels says he plans to hit major suburban employers-Motorola Inc. in Schaumburg, Northrop in Rolling Meadows and Ameritech in Hoffman Estates, to name a few-to try to convince corporate honchos to join him on the bandwagon.
He has three primary objectives: economic development, by working to provide jobs for minorities; consumer consciousness, by working to help minorities exercise greater control over where they do business; and spiritual regeneration, by focusing on families and “reclaiming our children.”
Those who know him best, the members of his congregation, agree he is the right man to move Operation PUSH in a new direction.
“He is a very concerned and caring pastor,” says Lois Mitchell of Darien, a member of Shiloh and a hospital administrator in Chicago. “He’s not the kind of church leader who just preaches from the pulpit. He’s always coming out into the community to visit and comfort people who have a personal tragedy or to help with a drug problem at a school. Now he’ll be able to reach out to a much larger community.”
