JACKSON, JESSE 1941-

BAPTIST MINISTER AND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER

Links with King

The Reverend Jesse Jackson came a long way very quickly from his beginnings as an illegitimate child in Greenville, South Carolina. His charm, drive, intelligence, and athletic ability led him into a football scholarship at North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro, where he became a leader in desegregation activities. His desire to become a Baptist minister led him to Chicago. Jackson first attracted national attention when he led a delegation from the Chicago Theological Seminary, where he was a student, to join demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 organized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Impressed by the young man's ability, King gave Jackson a job organizing black preachers in Chicago for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). When King moved his campaign north to Chicago in 1966, Jackson moved even closer to the center of the SCLC. He was placed in charge of Operation Breadbasket, which placed economic pressures on businesses to hire black workers. Jackson's highly publicized selective boycotts secured some work for black Chicagoans, and deposits in black-controlled banks sharply increased. He was becoming a public figure at an early age. His commitment to change in the South led him back to the South.

King's Death

Jackson was in Memphis with King in April 1968 to help focus attention on the city's striking sanitation workers. King's close associates were dismayed when Jackson appeared on network television the evening of King's assassination to claim he had been with King at the time of his death.

Suspension

Still working with the SCLC, Jackson had found the spotlight, and he attempted to focus it on his work with Operation Breadbasket. He staged Black Expo '70 in 1970 and repeated this celebration of blackness and black business the following year. When the SCLC discovered Jackson had incorporated Black Expo under his own name, he was suspended from the organization.

Operation PUSH

Jackson then formed his own organization, Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), taking with him most of his staff from the SCLC and local support from his previous work. PUSH aimed to secure jobs for the unemployed, organize people not making a living wage, and support minority-owned businesses. Jackson now took on larger businesses, such as Coca-Cola, Seven-Up, and Burger King, which signed agreements to hire more blacks and work more closely with black businesses.

Radio

Observers believed that the center of Jackson's power at this time was his Saturday radio broadcast from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. Thousands tuned in to hear him lead his followers in his widely acclaimed chant:

I am—Somebody!

I may be poor, but I am—Somebody!

I may be on welfare, but I am—Somebody!

I may be uneducated, but I am—Somebody!

I may be in jail, but I am—Somebody!

I am—Somebody!

Visibility

Young, handsome, charismatic, and attention seeking, Jackson acquired a national reputation, appearing on talk shows and news programs. He was the topic of cover stories in Playboy, Penthouse, and Time. By middecade he was probably the most visible black leader in the United States.

PUSH for Excellence

In 1975 Jackson began a self-help program for young people in the increasingly black urban slums of the nation. Like many self-help preachers, Jackson believed that opportunities were now open to young blacks if they were willing and prepared to take them. He assured his young audiences, "No one will save us for us but us." Instead of simply blaming white society for their problems, Jackson claimed that blacks must recognize that hard work, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and persistence were essential for success. The target of PUSH for Excellence (PUSH/Excel), as he called his program, was young people, but he hoped to muster the strengths of the black community, its schools, its families, and its churches to give young people the support they needed.

Government Aid

As Jackson took his message around the country, city after city organized local programs. In 1977, with the encouragement of former vice-president Hubert Humphrey, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare began awarding PUSH/Excel millions of dollars, and by 1979 twenty-two programs had been established.

Embracing Arafat

But in September 1979 Jackson attracted significant criticism and negative publicity when he went to the Middle East and a photograph of him embracing Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization appeared in American papers. The already-serious tension between the black and Jewish communities heated up, and Jackson became a target of anger. In many locations his PUSH/Excel program lost local support and went into decline, but his career continued as he sought to lead the black community, as well as advance his own fame in the coming decades. The issue was whether he could lead blacks more effectively as a preacher or as a politician.