Jesse

He was Somebody

This was long before Barack Obama, back when black candidates for president were considered—well, protest showboats, slightly embarrassing, in it for the publicity or to exploit the anger of their most vehement supporters. It was in Wisconsin, on a Saturday night in 1984, when most of the distinguished national pressies had gone back to Washington for the Gridiron Dinner.

Jesse Jackson was the featured speaker in a fancy hall. The moment I’ll never forget happened before he got up to speak. The Reverend was introduced in the traditional partisan way, “the next president of the United States…” And a gasp and a shiver from the almost entirely white crowd—from me, too. Jesse came on quietly, as he usually did—in his churchly way—very conscious of his modulation, building, building, sensing the audience and bringing it along. Did I mention that the audience was almost entirely white? Not used to black baptist cadences. But he brought them along, reeled them in. There was a standing ovation at the end. But I was still haunted by that introduction: the next president of the United States!

Jesse Jackson was always about possibility, not precedent. He was not going to be the next president, not in 1984 and not in 1988. But he could stand in front of a mostly white audience and lead. He promoted a Rainbow Coalition, but his movement was a black thing. It couldn’t be anything else, not with his provenance—not with that defining photograph, him on the balcony of that Memphis hotel with Dr. King.

He and I disagreed on some things—basic things to him. I was against race-based preferences, even if the black cause, and the lifting up of black people, was the single issue I cared most about, and still do. I’ve explained my feelings about affirmative action in this space before. I believe in offering special help to the poor, regardless of race. I believe in remedial help, if necessary; still, it was pointless to insert a promising but unprepared black kid into Harvard only to see her drop out. I also believed that minority quotas in business contracting—something Jesse pushed hardest for—would come a cropper in the end, raising racial resentment in the white, Asian and Latino communities. (All too often, especially in the construction trade, “minority” businesses were covers for companies owned by less than savory white contractors.)

We did have one memorable confrontation. I was there the day in 1992 when Bill Clinton spoke to the Rainbow Coalition in Washington. He mentioned in passing the depredations of Sister Souljah, who rapped about the need—metaphorically I imagined, but still—for blacks to kill white people. The interesting thing was, the reference seemed to float past Jesse and much of the audience—Clinton could mesmerize a crowd, too—and when the speech was over, Jesse warmly congratulated Bill on the rostrum. That night, Jesse had me on his weekly TV show—was it on CNN?—to talk about the events of the day and he had changed his tune. He was outraged that Clinton had brought up Sister Souljah. I defended Clinton. Jesse was surprised; he was used to obeisance from white interlocutors he imagined would be sympathetic. It got pretty heated. In retrospect, Jesse had a point: the Sister Souljah ploy was a planned political stunt, meant to differentiate Clinton from the usual patronizing white politicians. But, I had a point, too: it long past time for white liberals to have real conversations with the black community. No more patronizing. You couldn’t just let black people talk about killing white people and chalk it up to historic anger; if there was to be equality, it had to start now—no exceptions. Bill Clinton was devoted to the civil rights cause; he also hated pissing off anyone, so it was doubly shocking. It may not have been his finest moment, but it was an important one—and it’s our collective failure not to have had a real national conversation about the black underclass, and crime, and family dysfunction in the decades since.

Jesse and I were off each other, understandably, for a time after that. I don’t think we ever had a formal rapprochement, but there did come a time when we were standing next to each other at an Obama for President rally in Mississippi. It was an entirely integrated crowd—and I mean, truly integrated, blacks and whites sitting together, chatting. They were people who knew each other; perhaps even friends. “Look at that, Reverend, they’re not only sitting next to each other, they’re talking.”

He chuckled and said, naughtily—as was sometimes his wont—”That’s not the only thing they’re doing with each other.”

At which point Obama was introduced, the next president of the United States!

The Reverend Jesse Jackson cheered. I am grateful to have known him.

I’ll keep the special Sanity Clause discount subscription rate going for another round: