Jesse Jackson, 1941-2026

Jesse Jackson, 1941-2026

Jesse Jackson, RIP

Jesse Jackson died. He was 84. Jackson was one of Martin Luther King’s lieutenants and was with him when King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. Jackson did not inherit King’s mantle but continued to be a noted Civil Rights icon. He twice sought the democrat nomination for president in 1984 and 1988. He lost the nomination to Dukakis in 1988 but during the primaries Jackson totaled more votes from young democrats than did Dukakis. Jackson was noted for his communication skills and was the go-to person when the media needed a so-called spokesman for black people. I often remarked that I looked forward to the day when no one was considered a spokesman for blacks, often musing “who is the spokesman for Chinese-Americans, for Hispanic-Americans or pray tell for white-Americans?” Jackson founded his own civil rights organization, the Rainbow Coalition. In those days, rainbow referred to a racially inclusive organization, prior to “rainbow” being co-opted by the LGBTQ crowd. 

Jackson used racial demagoguery to extort businesses to help fund his organization. Yet when I was on the board of New Century Financial, the nation’s second largest subprime lender I had a two hour meeting with Rev. Jackson. The notorious group Acorn was picketing our offices in San Antonio and then in Chicago accusing us of predatory lending. I had had a meeting with the head of Acorn telling his to give us his grievances and we would address each one. I also invited him or his representative to join a group I chaired quarterly made up of community leaders to discuss any concerns they had with our products and services. He declined being intent to only extract money from us to make him go away. We refused. He then went to Jackson who said that in a press conference he was slated to hold, that he would announce his support for Acorn against New Century. I flew to Chicago with our general counsel to meet with him prior to the news conference. I showed him all the documents pertaining to Acorn’s accusations and how they were false. I even showed him the statistical analysis we had done that discredited Acorn. We also said that if he endorsed Acorn, he would be on the wrong side and that we would release all our findings to vindicate ourselves. He decided not to even mention Acorn at his press conference and he never asked us for a dime for his organization. But we did offer him or his representative a seat on our community group.

President Trump and Rev. Jackson were long time acquaintances. The president tweeted “I knew him well, long before becoming President. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts. He was very gregarious – Someone who truly loved people!”

Of course Jackson was on the left, but not on the far left favored by today’s “progressives.” Jackson was no Bob Woodson (https://woodsoncenter.org) championing self-help. Rather blacks were always downtrodden in need of assistance from the federal government. Jackson said the Democratic Party was not perfect. At the 1984 convention he said “Yet we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.” Jackson also said “Leadership can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.” 

Yet Jackson, himself was a contradiction to those words. Born Jesse Louis Burns to abject poverty in segregated South Carolina he rose to boardrooms in corporate America and prominence in American politics. Jackson fulfilled the promise of America. It is a shame that he did not use his own story to inspire others to achieve their goals through hard work and determination. It is likely that Jackson once thought that the day would never come that his home state would elect a black senator and one day the flags around the state would fly at half mast to honor a black man. But it did and it has as South Carolina’s flags were lowered to honor the life of its native son, one Jesse L. Jackson.