Jesse Jackson: Minister, Civil Rights Activist, and Author

Introduction

The life of Jesse Jackson has always been associated with a strong belief in the Christian faith. His activism in the Civil Rights Movement — like that of his mentor, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. — was based not just on social and racial justice, but on a powerful belief that God intended for all his children to be free, to have a chance at a good and decent life, and that heaven awaits those who fight for justice and fairness and live wholesome, productive lives. Among his many accolades, awards, and appointments, he was appointed "Special Envoy to Africa" by President Bill Clinton and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 (Gale Biography). This paper sheds light on Jackson's career, his faith, his ministry, and the impact he has had on American society.

Jackson's Early Life and Times

Reverend Jesse Jackson was born on October 18, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, a city that was in the midst of serious social struggles due to Jim Crow racism and institutionally enforced racial segregation. He faced discrimination from the very beginning of his life, according to the Encyclopedia of World Biography (EWB). His young mother had become pregnant through a relationship with a married next-door neighbor named Noah Robinson. Besides being an African American in a segregated city — where public drinking fountains were labeled "Colored" and "White" — Jackson was "shunned and taunted by his neighbors and school classmates" for being a "nobody who had no daddy" (EWB).

According to the authors of the EWB, Jackson used those taunts and that heckling as motivation to become an understanding, helpful person to others who had been or were oppressed by racist institutions. In time, his mother married and became a hairdresser, achieving financial security, and Jackson's stepfather — who worked for the U.S. Post Office — adopted him in 1957. With his emotional insecurities behind him, he became a strong football player and won an athletic scholarship to the University of Illinois in Chicago. Eager to leave the Deep South and its racial tensions, Jackson looked forward to life in Chicago, only to find that there was "both open and covert discrimination" at the university and in other parts of the city.

After several semesters, Jackson returned to the South and enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (A&T), a school for African American students. He performed well there as both an athlete and a student leader, becoming popular on campus and winning the office of student body president. By his senior year, he was actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the EWB reports.

In the spring of 1968, Jackson and other officers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), including Dr. King, traveled to Memphis to support sanitation workers in their fight for fair pay. It was there, on April 4, 1968, that Dr. King was assassinated. That tragedy also opened the door to Jackson's recognition as a national civil rights leader. While claiming that he had held Dr. King in his arms after the leader was shot — a claim disputed by others present that night — Jackson appeared on national television the following day wearing a bloodied turtleneck jersey, and that appearance "vaulted him into national prominence" (EWB).

After becoming active in Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), the Rainbow Coalition, and other civil rights organizations, Jackson received his Master of Divinity from the Chicago Theological Seminary on June 3, 2000.

Jackson's Christianity and Ministry

In the Public Broadcasting Service archives of biographies and personalities, there is a section devoted to many facets of Jackson's life. In the segment titled "Jesse and the Bible," a number of his former colleagues, advisors, and friends discuss his Christianity and his love of Scripture. Eric Easter, a staff member of Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, said that Jackson did not merely try to live like Jesus — he saw Jesus as "kind of the ultimate political strategist. Not just a religious figure," Easter remarked, but a person who provided guidance for political empowerment and leadership (PBS.org).

Jackson's "amazing study of the Bible" and his "amazing knowledge" meant that he did not need to look up passages for his speeches. Jackson "seemed to be able to match a passage in the Bible with whatever situation was happening politically," Easter explained. Jackson assumed that those around him would see the connections between his chosen Scripture and the political situation at hand, though Easter noted that those links did not always resonate with others.

Mark Steitz, a policy advisor for Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, insists in the PBS account that Jackson always approached the questions of the day not from a "managerial perspective" but from a spiritual and moral one. Jackson believes this is what the Bible teaches — to approach life and its challenges from a moral perspective. It is this belief that gives him "a strength to endure the endless pettiness and problems"; without it, Steitz continues, Jackson "would have gone off and done something else" (PBS.org).

Though it was not fashionable to hold such strong convictions rooted in Scripture, and to act "out of strong political conviction rooted in a moral view," that is exactly how Jackson gets the work done that he believes "he has to get done," Steitz explains. When Jackson rises each morning, he asks: "Why am I doing this?" and "How am I getting this done?" — and he answers his own question: "because it is part of something he deeply believes in, and he believes that he is needed to do it by God," Steitz concludes.

Richard Thomas began traveling with Jackson in 1968 and describes the many trips across the country that he took with the reverend. At every stop along the way — between organizing meetings and speeches — "the cornerstone for the trip were always churches… every Sunday he preached at someone's church," whether in Spokane, Tampa, or Washington, D.C., Thomas explains.

Thomas and Jackson shared a hotel or motel room when they traveled. "Every night he got on his knees and said his prayers. Every night, religiously, without fail — he was on his knees and said his prayers, and it made me uncomfortable because I had never shared my prayers with anybody… he'd say his prayers, get into bed, and read the Bible," Thomas recalls in the PBS report. He insisted that reading the Bible "soothed him" and "prepared him for whatever he had to do next." Echoing Easter's observations, Thomas remembers that Jackson was "very capable of quoting passages that refer to what's going on in everyday life that you were experiencing at the moment" (PBS.org). He could "throw some passage from the Bible at you in a minute," Thomas concluded.

Another witness to Jackson's relationship with the Bible was Vivian Taylor, a family friend and the daughter of Jackson's church minister, Rev. Sample. When Taylor's father was preparing his sermon on Thursdays, no one was allowed to interrupt him — no one except Jesse Jackson. Taylor recalls that once Jesse told her father that he had attended seminary in Chicago, and her father sat listening as Jackson plunked down on the living room rug and allowed Rev. Sample to mentor him. Jackson was both humble and passionate about his relationship to the community and to his Christian faith.

Conclusion

Felicia R. Walker and Deric M. Greene write in the peer-reviewed Journal of African-American Studies that Jackson has employed the "Afrocentric" style in his speeches with great effectiveness. An Afrocentric style relates the language of the culture he is frequently addressing — the African American community — to his broader political arguments (Walker et al., 2006, p. 62). Moreover, when speaking to audiences of several cultures and ethnicities, he relies on "mythication" by using "religious symbolism in an effort to demonstrate the righteousness of his cause" (Walker, p. 65). As a Christian minister, Jackson draws on analogies to Biblical characters who, "with the help of God, have triumphed over oppressive circumstances."

That synthesis of faith and politics sums up where much of Jackson's spiritual and political energy has been directed throughout his life: helping people triumph over adversity and oppression. To that end, he has been supremely successful. As Walker observes, he possesses the ability to construct discourse that "engages and therefore increases the psychological closeness experienced between himself and the audience" (Walker, p. 66).

Works Cited

Burns, Roger. 2005. Jesse Jackson: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Encyclopedia of World Biography. 1998. Jesse Louis Jackson. Retrieved December 14, 2011, from Gale Biography in Context.

Frady, Marshall. 1998. At Random Magazine's interview with author Marshall Frady. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved December 14, 2011, from http://www.pbs.org.

Gale Biography In Context. 2010. Who's Who Among African Americans / Jesse Louis Jackson, Rev. Retrieved December 13, 2011.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 1995. Jesse and the Bible. Retrieved December 14, 2011, from http://www.pbs.org.

Walker, Felicia R. and Greene, Deric M. 2006. Exploring Afrocentricity: An Analysis of the Discourse of Jesse Jackson. Journal of African-American Studies, Vol. 9, 61–71.