Jackson Courts New York Minority Vote

NEW YORK Halfway between Third and Lexington Avenues on 101st Street, just on the border between the posh Upper East side of Manhattan and the Southernmost part of Spanish Harlem a group of about a hundred people are waiting for the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

On one side of the street stands a row of apartment buildings five stories high, which were built around the turn of the century. On the other side stands a similar row, but this one shows the scars and charred brick of a recent fire. The building has been ravaged by vandals, like hundreds of others in this area.

Three blocks away about a thousand marchers have been waiting for an hour and half for Jackson to show up. But the civil rights leader and Democratic Presidential candidate has decided to hold a hastily-scheduled press conference to protest the fact that the families who lived in the burned-down building have not been placed in permanent housing by the city government.

This is the sort of media event the Jackson campaign has thrived on in its effort to capture votes from the so-called Rainbow Coalition of women and minorities.

The minority vote is expected to be key in tomorrow's super-charged New York primary, which will award 252 delegates to the July Democratic convention, the biggest single block of delegates yet. Thirty-three additional uncommitted delegates will be chosen later by Democratic officials here.

Fifteen percent of the state's 3.5 million registered Democrats are Black, and voter registration drives have added more than 200,000 minority voters to Democratic rolls in the past year.

"These are our people, I've never seen so much enthusiasm," says William Lynch, Jackson's New York campaign manager.

Lynch, discounting polls which put Jackson, with 21 percent, in third place behind former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, with 41 percent, and Sen. Gary W. Hart (D-Colo.) with 28 percent, says he thinks Jackson can win.

"I don't think the pollsters get to our people--the minorities," he says.

When Jackson finally arrives at 101st Street, the crowd has swelled to about 200, and the candidate stands in the doorway of one of the buildings, holding the hands of children form the neighborhood.

"We must train our youth to end slums and rebuild America." Jackson shouts in his deep preacher's cadence.

Carmen Rios, a mother of two who says she is an welfare and lived in the building that burned down, says that she thinks Jackson is the only candidate "who really cares about poor people. He offers me hope."

Buoyed by a strong showing in the recent Illinois primary and on the televised debate between the candidate last week, Jackson is heavily favored to win a lion's share of the minority vote tomorrow. But various packets of New York City's Black and Hispanic community are still up for grabs.

Harlern, in fact, is the base of a number of Black politicians, including Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D.N.Y.), who support Mondale, Jackson's assured support in the Black community is centered in Brooklyn, where a new younger generation of politicians is developing.

The division between the new and older generations of Black political strength is demonstrated by the decision of the New Amsterdam News, a prominent Black weekly, not to make an endorsement.

"Early on, no one took Jesse seriously," says George Webber, a pastor in East Harlem since 1948. Webber notes that the newspaper originally was set against a Jackson candidacy, and only "belatedly realized that Jesse had strong support and could raise the hopes of the people."

"But the real problem have is apathy," says Webber. "Is there any reason for these people to believe the government can do something for them? Look at the war on poverty: big promises dashed to the ground. This is psychic murder we are engaging in."

Question marks also surround Jackson's purported Hispanic support. Most of the prominent Hispanic politicians in the area support Mondale, Rep. Robert Garcia (D.N.Y.), for instance, endorsed Mondale last year, Hispanics, along with Jowish voten, are thought by campaign strategists on all sides to make up Mondale's most solid blocs of support.

"Logically, you'd think that Hispanics would go right along with the Blacks in the voting booth," Webber says. "But they won't because they're afraid of the racism that has affected Blacks. They're trying to distance themselves from that."

The march waiting for Jackson on 101st Street seems to be the campaign's answer to these divisions. Aides note that Jackson, who that morning had visited the Lesbian and Day Communities Service Counter in Greenwich village and than led a march through Chinatown, was actively trying to about new constituencies, Jackson has been challenged recently with questions that his rainbow coalition is actually monochromatically Black.

The march though, includes a profusion of groups marked by ethnic and political diversity.

Most of the thousands that crowd the sidewalks are Black and young and many say they would not have come out for another candidate.

"I'm just have to see Jesse," says Darryl Richards of East Harlem. "I think if Gary Hart or Walter Mandrel care cane people would boo."

And Richards and other supporters are not disappointed. Jackson eventually joins the march and then at the end delivers a stump speech.

"I am some body," Jackson intones, and he has the crowd of more than 6000 chanting.

Jackson says he is the "real alternative. There are three candidates in this race but only tow points of view. I am the only one calling for a cut in the defense budget. We need more than a new President. We head a new direction."

Jackson continues to attack Hart and Mondale, saying that through they are not "men who stand in school house doors and prevent Blacks from going to school, they did not march in the South. They were not there."

"I will remain in this campaign," he says, "I will remain the conscience of the Democratic party."

Jackson builds to the climax of his speech, speaking more quickly and forcefully.

"Martin Luther King Jr. was crucified on April 4, 1968 and on April 3, 1984 we will roll the stone away and resurrect him," he shouts. The crowd erupts in its biggest wave of applause