Having covered the Rev. Jesse Jackson on and off for more than half a century, I’ve watched him become one of the most quoted, and most misunderstood, figures in American public life.
One line in particular has followed him for decades. In 1993, Jackson told an audience of inner-city youths in Chicago, “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps … then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Journalist David Masciotra, in his book “I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters,” gave Jackson an opportunity to explain the remark.
As Jackson explained, he and his family lived in Washington, D.C., during much of the 1990s. Gun violence was epidemic throughout the country; violent crime rates reached their historic peaks in many American cities. Shootings were happening on his own block, and one happened while his wife was standing outside their home.
The fear of young Black men was a new feeling for him.
“In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, without exception, I would feel less secure and more in danger if a crowd following me was white,” he told Masciotra.
Recall that Jackson grew up in the Jim Crow South at a time when lynching hadn’t quite died out. He joined the Civil Rights Movement at a time when registering voters could get you killed. He was present at Selma and Montgomery, where state troopers viciously beat marchers. He was with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was gunned down.
Jackson was also fortunate enough to see the violence of the 1990s subside, falling by half or more in in many cities.
Yet that 1993 comment would be dredged up regularly. As he told Masciotra, it was “the only thing I’ve said that the right ever quotes approvingly, but they ignore the context.”
As a fellow Black Chicagoan, I felt his pain in the 1990s. Many theories have since been advanced to explain the explosion of violent crime, but at the time many of us felt exasperated. The Civil Rights Movement had achieved many of its objectives, and African Americans were reaching new heights of professional, political and cultural status. And yet progress was unevenly distributed.
Powerfully addictive crack cocaine swept though impoverished urban neighborhoods, empowering a new, more ruthless, better armed class of criminals, bringing predictable devastation.
Sociologists and bien-pensant journalists began writing darkly about a permanent underclass, seemingly beyond help. Not just law-and-order Republicans but also regular Democrats all seemed to agree that Something Must Be Done. Then-Sen. Joe Biden drafted the Senate version of the 1994 Crime Bill, which imposed harsher sentencing guidelines, and “New” Democrat President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
A dissenting voice was Jesse Jackson. He warned that the law would lead to mass incarceration (it did). He warned that it would lead to a further breakdown in relations between police and Black communities (ditto). Jackson understood the permeating fear of urban violence, but he never stopped advocating, tirelessly and eloquently, for investment in people. He never gave up hope that people in troubled communities could be saved.
But we had to act toward that end. We needed to fund day care and after-school programs. We had to fund job training and provide better schools. We had to support broken families so children could have stable lives.
However, as Jackson lamented to Masciotra, “We have replaced a domestic Marshall Plan with martial law.”
That’s why I grew to appreciate Jackson. He never stopped serving humanity. Those two words were enshrined in the acronym of his influential Chicago-based social justice group, Rainbow PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity).
Jackson embodied the PUSH spirit. With the seemingly relentless energy, crusading in cities nationwide, he inspired Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko to nickname him Jesse Jetstream, which sort of stuck, although I don’t think anyone called him that to his face.
Jackson was often teased in the press — and sometimes disparaged — for his dazzling oratory, for the organizing muscle he deployed against corporations and other institutions, for the audacity of running for president twice. And that criticism is as good an indication as any of how pivotal he was in American politics in the last half-century.
Over the years, Jackson and I didn’t always agree on everything — who does? — but I never doubted his devotion to his cause. He always did his homework and worked at an exhausting pace — sometimes waking up journos like me at dawn to inform us of some new outrage on which we should pounce.
As one who appreciates his sleep, I was not enamored of that practice. But right about now, reflecting on his dedication, leadership, vision and his unrelenting belief in people and in justice, I already miss him.
He didn’t just preach hope. He made it sound like an obligation.
Email Clarence Page at cptimee@gmail.com.
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