Always in the Spotlight, Jackson Does Politics His Own Way

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson once claimed that he held the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s head as he was dying, and that the blood from King's wounded body made a dark smear on his clothing.

For Jackson, who was deeply aware of the importance of spirituality in black leadership at the time, this was a sort of gruesome baptism, anointing him to take King's place as the preeminent leader of black America.

But some Americans see this incident in a much different light--as emblematic of how Jackson, a two-time presidential candidate and a leading civil rights figure, is willing to co-opt even the most solemn issues for his own political advancement.

Jackson, this year's Kennedy School of Government Class Day speaker, has inspired in some observers--among them many intellectuals and career politicians--a vicious and unwavering disdain for what they see as his relentless, sometimes even violent, pursuit of the spotlight.

Elizabeth Colton, Jackson's former press secretary and one of his biographers, accused Jackson of manipulating King's death to his own advantage.

"Jesse took advantage of [King's death] to propel himself into the limelight. There is an egomania that remains about him," she said in an interview with C-SPAN in 1989.

Others, though, maintain that Jackson, the most successful black presidential candidate ever, is more substance than style, and that his charisma has been a powerful tool in drawing attention to issues of race and to the plight of the disadvantaged.

"Jesse's not just a formidable campaigner...he has a way of connecting with an audience and captures the essence of an issue in ways that the rest of us can't," says former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, who ran against Jackson in the 1988 Democratic primary. "It's more than just eloquence."

Regardless, Jackson's importance on the American political landscape is undeniable. As entire swaths of the American populace, long marginalized and ignored, began to flex their political muscles in the second half of this century, Jackson was in the thick of their struggles.

Running From His House

One of the reasons Jackson has been such a dynamic leader is his ability to identify with the disadvantages of many of his constituents.

Jackson was born in Greenville, S.C. on October 8, 1941, and spent much of his early years in poverty.

At the age of five, he discovered that the man he thought was his father was not, in fact, his biological father. It was not until Jackson began to demonstrate success as an athlete that his real father acknowledged him.

His mother, who could barely afford to support her two children, worked full time as a maid. Jackson once described how she used to go to work with runs in her stockings in order to buy Jackson and his brother matching socks, so that they would not have to suffer the snickers of their school classmates.

In his speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention, Jackson was quite candid about the harsh realities of his youth.

"[They] see me running for the White House," he said, "they don't see the house I'm running from. [When I was born,] my mama was not supposed to make it, and I was not supposed to make it. You see, I was born of a teen-age mother, who was born of a teen-age mother."

But Jackson's humble origins are more than a connection to his constituents--they are a source of his staggering ambition. Jackson, according to one of his biographers, Marshall Frady, has spent most of his life with his childhood yapping at his heels, and he is driven by an insatiable need to be acknowledged and appreciated as a leader.

"The sense of dispossession [that resulted from his illegitimate birth] left a hole in his psyche that he has forever after been trying to fill," Frady says.

Despite his modest beginnings, Jackson has always had lofty aspirations.

"I was born in the slum," Jackson said in his 1988 convention speech, "but the slum was not born in me."

Jackson attended the University of Illinois for one year on a football scholarship before he transferred to the predominantly black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina.

After college, Jackson decided to enter the ministry, the vocation of most of the black leaders of the time. He began postgraduate work at the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1966 and was ordained a Baptist minister two years later.

While he was still in college, Jackson became involved in King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization instrumental in organizing the 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington, D.C.

After graduating from college, Jackson spearheaded Operation Breadbasket, a branch of SCLC based in Chicago that was devoted to economic justice for American blacks.

Shakedown Artist

Following King's assassination in 1968, Jackson grew dissatisfied with the SCLC leadership, and in 1971, he formed his own splinter group similar to Breadbasket--People United to Save Humanity (PUSH).

In 1996, PUSH merged with the National Rainbow Coalition, a social justice organization Jackson founded in 1984, to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, of which Jackson is now president.

During his early years at PUSH, Jackson's leadership abilities shined through, and he was able to mobilize the Chicago black community so that it would respond quickly and decisively to his calls for action.

But something else came through as well--Jackson's discomfiting and often confrontational manner of conducting business.

As president of PUSH, Jackson targeted businesses that profited from, but did not re-invest in, the black community in Chicago.

He would send companies detailed questionnaires asking them how many African-Americans they hired, in what departments and at what salaries. If their responses did not satisfy Jackson, he would meet with them and demand that they change their ways, all the while threatening them with a boycott if they did not meet his demands.

Jackson also used his moral and religious authority as an ordained Baptist minister to wield influence in the political domain.

In meetings with company executives, Jackson was more likely to quote the bible than the law, to appeal to God over pragmatic political considerations.

"How in the world do you fight the man when he comes into the room and starts right off with a prayer that God will help you see the light?" agonized one corporate official, according to Frady.

Even some prominent members of the black community realized Jackson's tactics were unlikely to make him any friends.

"[Jackson] missed his calling. What Jesse should be is our business shakedown artist," says black leader Bruce Llewelyn, who is a former member of the Carter administration.

Jackson's brash way of conducting politics at times has bordered on the offensive.

At one point towards the end of his 1984 presidential campaign, Jackson sat down with a group of black reporters, told them they could "talk black talk now," and proceeded to speak of New York as "Hymietown," in reference to its large Jewish population.

That incident, combined with his refusal to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan, despite the latter's virulent anti-Semitic positions, has led some to label Jackson as racist, a charge he vigorously denies.

Jackson first refused to admit he made the hymietown comment, but then, as Jewish groups grew more and more incensed, he admitted to the remark and attributed it to a moment of thoughtlessness. Apologizing to those whom he had offended, Jackson affirmed his human capacity for error.

"I am not a perfect servant," he declared at the Democratic convention in 1984. "I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet."

Outside the Barn

One of the most frequent criticisms leveled at Jackson centers upon his relentless, even violent, pursuit of the spotlight.

There is a pervading sense that Jackson is disingenuous, that what he wants more than anything is to be the star of his own personal morality play.

Colton, in her book The Jackson Phenomenon, recounted an instance where Jackson literally shoved her out of the way to get to a pack of television cameras.

"There is the smack of the eager about him," Frady says. "He is one of the few people whose direct ambition has been to become the moral leader of his time. This position came to King haphazardly, almost by happenstance, but Jesse has gone right for it."

Jackson's most recent accomplishment--and one of his most public--was his trip to Yugoslavia to secure the release of three American prisoners of war (POWs).

This was not the first such excursion by Jackson--he successfully freed POWs held by Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War, and did the same when President Assad of Syria held U.S. pilots hostage during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Despite his successes, officials in three separate administrations have been quick to dissuade him from his attempts, and upon his return, have done little to trumpet his achievements.

When Jackson negotiated the release of Lieut. Robert O. Goodman Jr. from a Syrian prison in 1983, The New York Times attributed it to "Syria's desires to further antagonize the Reagan Administration by going over its head with a gesture to the American people."

Further, the Times attacked Jackson for vandalizing the country's foreign policy, and concluded its editorial on the matter by suggesting that Jackson's entire trip was simply "media bait."

Dukakis says it is difficult for a sitting president to have a person go over their head and affect foreign policy, but that sometimes civilians can accomplish objectives which government officials cannot.

"It's important to have people like [Jackson and Jimmy Carter] who can take their own personal prestige and put it to play at a time of crisis. The fact of the matter is that it's tough to turn down a request from Jesse Jackson," Dukakis says.

But according to some, Jackson's aggressiveness does not invalidate his leadership abilities. Dukakis says it is nave to fault a leader for courting press attention.

"Using the media as a means for communicating and making an impact is an essential part of public life," Dukakis says. "You need to get your ideas across some how. Doing things at midnight in a barn somewhere isn't going to have an impact."

Presidential Candidate

Jackson's brightest moments in the spotlight--during his two presidential campaigns--represent his most striking successes.

Although Jackson was not the first black presidential candidate--Frederick Douglas managed to secure a single delegate at the Republican convention of 1888--he was the first serious contender.

In his 1984 campaign, Jackson won over three and a half million votes, and in his 1988 campaign, he surprised frontrunner Dukakis by winning the Michigan primary. He arrived at the Democratic convention with over 1,200 delegates to his name.

"I was not exactly happy about that," Dukakis says of the Michigan upset. "We felt we were comfortably out in front."

Although Jackson never won the Democratic presidential nomination, his enterprise was not in vain. Some Scholars believe his voter registration efforts during that time changed the face of the American political landscape.

Frady claims that if it weren't for Jackson's registration of over three million voters, most of them black, America might have elected a very different brand of leader in the 1980s.

David Duke, he suggests, would have become governor in Louisiana, and countless politicians friendly to the civil rights movement would not have been swept into office.

"He effectively changed the leadership in the Senate," Frady says.

But the most important aspect of Jackson's campaigns may be the precedent he has set. Jackson forced America to consider the possibility of electing a black man to the highest office in the country.

"He's broken that great attitudinal barrier that no black can hold office on that kind of level," Frady says.

A Higher Office

While Jackson's presidential campaign was successful, Jackson himself was not the most successful candidate.

Despite Jackson's forays into the political arena, his strengths, it appears, may lie elsewhere. His potency as a leader has always stemmed from the force of his vision, which he brings to the table at full gallop, knocking detractors aside.

And while Jackson's moral tenacity is the very thing that makes him so inspiring as a leader, it also makes political maneuvering--which often requires compromise and pragmatism--difficult.

"Jackson brings a moral vision to what is most commonly conducted as an amoral commerce," Frady says. "His tactics are outside the operational radar screen of the political community."

It seems that Jackson--now host to his own talk show on CNN, "Both Sides with Jesse Jackson"--may have realized that his calling, while firmly planted within the political arena, does not necessarily require political office itself.

"I don't think that Jackson ever truly imagined himself in the Oval Office, except as a visitor," wrote DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. in a 1995 New Yorker article.

After falling short of the Democratic nomination twice, Jackson dropped out of the Democratic primary in 1992, and has given no indication that he will campaign for the nomination in 2000.

Jackson's career, then, has come full circle. He began it as a proponent of King's "gospel populism,"--as Frady refers to the spiritual message of the civil rights movement--and then attempted to transform that vision into a political message.

He has now returned to a position that draws its power not by seeking political office, but from the ability to lead and inspire a community to action.

After decades at the forefront of political life, Jackson now may actually be what he anointed himself as in the days after King's assassination.

"Never mind the delegate count," Gates wrote in The New Yorker, "in 1988, Jesse Jackson was elected President of black America."