Jesse Jackson: The Image Versus the Man

Writing this obituary is challenging – especially if you did not admire the deceased. I run up against the admonition never to speak ill of the dead – even though we generally do – and factual reporting.

Jesse Jackson was a towering figure in the civil rights movement. Much of his civil rights work is praiseworthy – but it was not by far the whole story of the man. He was someone I knew well – and worked with and against at various times. I knew him from his highly reported activities — and from my own experiences. The man got great reviews from the left-wing media — and from those who were only exposed to the crafted public image.

I saw the powerful civil rights leader upon whom they reported. Jackson spoke to authority at a time when authority was greatly racist. But I also saw the self-dealing con man the media largely chose to ignore. I was not an uncompromised admirer and wrote critically of Jackson’s actions and activities for more than 50 years.

Perhaps my view of Jackson was jaded by my first experience. At the time – the late 1960s – I was a young executive with Motorola – director of public affairs and community relations. Jackson had targeted the company for prejudicial employment practices. He was not wrong. At the time, Motorola had a personnel vice president who only hired Blacks for night shift janitorial work. Ironically, at the time I pled Jackson’s case with CEO Robert Galvin – son of the founder.

Jackson picketed the company headquarters and called for a boycott of Motorola products — and was publicly demanding an increase in Black hirings. It was the settlement that surprised me. There was to be only a token increase in Black employment in the factory at night – no change in the all-white headquarters staff. But … there was also a $100,000 donation to Jackson’s Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity).

To me, it looked like a shakedown. It was a shakedown. It was Jackson’s modus operandi throughout his career.

Jackson used the same tactics to secure money from other companies, lucrative beer distributorships for two of his sons, a McDonald’s franchise for a friend, and other goodies. It made Jackson a multi-millionaire – and a beneficiary of Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition funds.

The Jackson I saw was a pragmatic self-promoter with political ambitions more than moral principles. His events were personally stage-crafted and orchestrated by Jackson himself – even to the smallest details. Those folks you saw behind him on the stage were mostly selected and positioned by Jackson. Everything was for the cameras – and his image.

In many ways, Jackson was more politician than preacher. Jackson’s pragmatism was evident in his flip-flop on abortion. He launched his civil rights career as an outspoken and vigorous opponent of abortion – often explaining its racist impact on the Black community. When he decided to run for the Democrat presidential nomination in 1984, he switched to the Democratic Party’s abortion advocacy.

While Jackson had a short-term working relationship with Martin Luther King, it did not end well. The King family and King’s successor Ralph Abernathy broke with Jackson over the “bloody shirt” incident. Jackson was in Memphis with the King entourage at the time of the assassination, but he was not on the balcony with the civil rights leader when he was shot – nor did he get blood on his shirt — as he claimed.

Jackson arrived on the balcony after the assassination and smeared King’s blood on his shirt. He then hightailed it to Chicago to tell his mythical account. It worked, and the fantasy version endured. CNN’s obituary included the false narrative as a matter of fact. MS NOW went even further (as expected). In referring to the assassination, the left-wing propaganda network not only spread the phony story, but panelist historian Jon Meacham said Jackson was an apostle at the “Calvary moment” – alluding to the crucifixion of Christ.

The King family broke with Jackson over the bloody shirt stunt. Rev. Ralph Abernathy, King’s closest associate and successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, issued a blunt statement that Jackson was not at King’s side when he was shot. He accused Jackson of “self-promotion” and “manufactured drama.”

The “bloody shirt” fiction was so offensive that Black rapper Game wrote a song, “Where Were You?” condemning Jackson’s bloody shirt claim. The lyrics include these lines:

I wonder why Jesse Jackson,

did not catch him,

Before his body dropped.

Would he give me the answer?

Probably not.

Game explained his lyrics:

“On the day King got shot, he was not there. When I say, ‘How come you could not catch your man’s body when it dropped?’ it is because you could not if you wanted to. You were somewhere else. You claimed to be his man. Where were you that day?”

Jackson was part of the support team in Chicago’s second Black Mayor Eugene Sawyer’s reelection campaign. Or so we thought. At the time, I was the official campaign spokesman for the mayor. Jackson seemed less than an enthusiastic supporter – and there were rumors that he had cut a secret deal with Sawyer’s opponent, Richard M. Daley – who ultimately defeated Sawyer.

Whether there was a secret deal is unproven political chatter, but what can be said is that Jackson had developed an unusually friendly working relationship with the racist Daley administration. Jackson got Democrat machine backing for his son to get a congressional seat and his daughter-in-law to get a seat on the city council. Those offices do not go to outsiders. Despite the institutional racism that has been rampant in Chicago, Jackson never appeared at protests in front of city hall. Prominent Chicago civil rights activist Lu Palmer was among those who accused Jackson of being “too close to the (Chicago) political machine.” He said that Jackson’s public persona did not match his behind-the-scenes alliances. Palmer said Jackson “talked Black but acted machine.”

Many civil rights leaders, who knew Jackson best, did not share the admiration and enthusiasm he received on the road and from the fawning left-wing media.

Comedian Dick Gregory accused Jackson of “ego politics” and of being more interested in celebrity than liberation. He criticized Operation PUSH as being too focused on promoting Jackson himself. Former Black Panther and later Congressman Bobby Rush saw Jackson as a grandstander who only “showed up for the cameras.”

While President Obama has never been openly critical of Jackson, his opinion could be divined when he made Jackson’s competitor, Al Sharpton, the go-to guy in matters of race and racism. That – and the onset of Parkinson’s disease – pushed Jackson largely into the shadows in the later years of his life.

Chicago’s first Black Mayor Harold Washington was also no fan of Jackson. I had a friendly working relationship with Washington – and we occasionally met privately for a drink after the mayor’s workday. In discussing Jackson on one occasion, Washington saw the civil rights leader as “a self-absorbed show boater.” “He is a bullshitter, but he is a good one,” said the mayor. Washington said that Jackson, “… wants to be Martin (Luther King) – but that will never happen.”

Jackson’s critics – including me – saw a man obsessed with fame, power, and money. Civil rights were just his vehicle. I personally considered Jackson to be a race baiter of the kind Booker T. Washington referred to when he said:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Yes, Jackson was charismatic and did some good things, but he had another side that was far less admirable. And it is as much a part of his legacy as all the glowing praise he receives.

So, there ‘tis.