A reflection on the power of Jesse Jackson’s vision and thoughts on how his legacy can guide us today…
by: Audrey Levitin
We remember and celebrate Reverend Jesse Jackson’s legacy as his spirit and legacy offers inspiration during a dark time for America. Jesse Jackson was among my first political heroes. His expansive vision for an inclusive America was matched by his talent, charisma, and ambition. Through the force of his personality and imagination, he reached people of all ethnicities, races, and religions, piercing through layers of seemingly impenetrable segregation still very much the norm in the 1970s. I discovered Reverend Jackson through our family’s small television as I watched at home in my white working class town.
His signature chant, Keep Hope Alive, lifted me up as a teenager during the fierce debates of that time raging around the anti-war and Civil Rights movements. That slogan is as deeply resonant now as it was then as we search for a path forward in a frighteningly divided America.
Reverend Jackson was the first Black man to compete for the Democratic nomination for President, running in 1984 and 1988. Although he didn’t win, his campaign and remarkable speeches at both DNC Conventions articulated a mission of redemption to revive the poor and stay true to the working class.
Many years ago at the 1988 Democratic Convention, Reverend Jackson connected Americans delivering one of the country’s great political speeches. Describing America as a patchwork quilt, a metaphor anchored in thoughts of his grandmother’s quilt, a garment made with love, Reverend Jackson depicted our economy’s interconnectivity as an emotional and spiritual ecosystem of striving, dreams, self-worth, and hopes. As the Democrats looked for a path forward, Reverend Jackson’s vision of a dynamic Democracy built on spiritual principles acted as a North Star.
Jesse Jackson came across my black and white TV screen, young, handsome, tall and fearless, his voice booming:
“I may be poor, but I am somebody.”
“I may be on welfare, but I am somebody.”
“I deserve to be respected.”
“I deserve to be protected.”
In 1971, in a softer voice, he spoke those words to children, black, white, and brown on Sesame Street bringing the chant of self-empowerment into the mainstream. The Rainbow Coalition was established that year and was the first organization to mirror the kind of world I want.
My father was never going to be as enamored with Reverend Jackson as me. His passions were rooted in the politics of his generation. He found inspiration in FDR, Adlai Stevenson and JFK.
I often joined my father for breakfast on Saturday mornings. He stood at the stove, wearing a white t-shirt and black sports pants, mashing his favorite concoction of salami and eggs in a pan. He liked to talk about Adlai Stevenson who twice won the Democratic nomination for president and twice lost to Dwight Eisenhower in the general election. With a sigh he said, “Stevenson was the best president we never had. He talked above the head of the average man,” ironically unaware he was one of the working class men Stevenson reached. My father opposed the Vietnam War but supported the troops and was appalled by the demonstrations roiling the nation and dividing generations. He became a Reagan Democrat, believing that the Democrats no longer represented him..
Together, on a July night, my father and I watched Jesse Jackson’s speech to the Democratic National Convention. The speech drew upon the powerful language of religion, where hurt and anger can be answered with strength centered in love and shared humanity.
“America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.” He said of his grandmother, “with sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture.” He spoke to the humanity of the people who make up the American family, addressing the common need for fairness, the shared desire to be seen and respected, a bond between Americans whether they be striking workers, family farmers, working women, Latino farm workers, or people struggling with HIV/AIDs.
Holding the speech together was the common bond found in hope and mutual understanding. Without that common spiritual underpinning the Democratic party will not be able to build the coalition necessary to win at a time when the party needs to unite people in the common goal of saving American democracy. The connective tissue holding Americans together must be a unifying patchwork quilt that fulfills Reverend Jackson’s vision and life’s work.
Audrey Levitin is Senior Counsel at CauseWired, a firm working with social service and human rights organizations. For 15 years she was the Chief Development Officer at the Innocence Project. Ms. Levitin is an essayist and her work has been seen in the Star Ledger, The Weekly Forward, and Cape Cod Life. She has also written about criminal justice reform in Occupy Wall Street and the Innocence Project. She and her husband, photographer Nick Levitin, live in West Orange, New Jersey.
