Jackson's presidential runs in 1984 and 1988 played a significant role in shaping the modern Democratic Party.
Kevin Robillard at HuffPost:
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who bridged the era of Martin Luther King Jr. with the modern world and whose two presidential runs in the 1980s set the stage for today’s progressive movement, died early Tuesday, his family announced. He was 84.
“Our father was a servant leader ― not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family said in a statement. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.” The statement did not list a cause of death but noted that Jackson died peacefully surrounded by family. Born in segregated Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson was a prodigy who would become nationally known by his early 20s, become a controversial figure in both white and Black America by the age of 30, help resolve international crises in his 40s, host a CNN show and become a presidential confidant in his 50s, and become a respected elder statesman in the new millennium.
An electrifying speaker, Jackson could never escape the criticism that he was more flash than follow-through. Other politicians, even ideological allies, viewed him as untrustworthy and ego-driven. Conservatives argued Jackson added fuel to the fire of racial divides for his own benefit.
Electoral success eluded him — his only successful campaign was for a wholly symbolic office in Washington, D.C. But his campaigns for president in 1984 and 1988 helped create the image of what the modern Democratic Party seeks to be but rarely seems to achieve: a multiracial coalition of voters dedicated to economic fairness. “If there was no Jesse Jackson, in my view, there never would have been a President Barack Obama,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in 2020 while campaigning alongside Jackson, a man he has repeatedly cited as an inspiration. However, Jackson, who campaigned as an unflinching economic progressive and critic of American foreign policy, also set the stage for Sanders’ own runs for the presidency.
Jackson was the son of an unwed teenage mother who grew up across the street from his father’s legitimate family, a rejection that friends told reporters still stung decades later. He became class president and a star athlete in high school, and later played college football at the University of Illinois and North Carolina A&T. He graduated from the latter school in 1964 with a degree in sociology, also serving as class president there. After participating in a sit-in at a public library in Greenville while in college, he moved to Chicago to attend divinity school and become more involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He participated in marches from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama and established a branch of the King-led Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Chicago. He was later appointed to lead SCLC’s economic arm, Operation Breadbasket, which organized boycotts of businesses the organization believed did not promote economic opportunities for African Americans.
Jackson’s evident ambition and drive impressed and occasionally annoyed King, but they chafed other civil rights leaders. His actions following King’s assassination in 1963 would lead to a permanent split between him and King’s family. Jackson, who was standing below the balcony where King was shot, appeared on television the next day wearing a shirt stained with King’s blood. Other SCLC leaders were appalled, and Coretta Scott King never forgave Jackson. In 1971, Ralph Abernathy and others pushed Jackson out of SCLC leadership, even though he argued he was merely continuing King’s desire to focus on economic justice.
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Conservatives and business leaders would denounce Jackson as little more than a shakedown artist, arguing the commitments he secured from companies seeking to avoid or end boycotts did more to benefit his political allies than the Black population at large. He also became a somewhat unlikely negotiator for the United States while dealing with left-wing authoritarian governments around the world: He negotiated with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1983 to secure the release of an American pilot shot down over Lebanon, and with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro the next year for the release of 22 Americans held there. These bouts of international statesmanship helped set the stage for Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. Made during President Ronald Reagan’s administration — the peak power of the conservative movement — Jackson’s run, especially his second, would form the basis of the modern progressive movement, the earliest stirrings of progressive dissent from neoliberalism. He challenged the so-called “Atari Democrats,” young, moderate politicians like Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Jackson tried to escape the idea that he was a candidate specifically for Black voters, beginning to transform himself into an economic populist. He won over the Alabama state legislature, whose membership included former National Guardsmen who stared him down as a protester, with a speech railing against “Honda and Toyota, Suzuki and Yamaha, Sony and Panasonic, being unloaded at the docks and replacing Buick and Chrysler in the American market.” [...] In the 1990s, Jackson’s fame led him to host a debate show on CNN, titled “Both Sides With Jesse Jackson.” Most episodes featured two experts or politicians debating a topic, with Jackson primarily serving as moderator and often delivering an editorial comment at the end of an episode.
[...] After spending much of the 1980s working to defeat the Atari Democrats and the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, Jackson spent the 1990s advising Clinton, the DLC’s greatest success. While criticizing Clinton’s moves to reform welfare, he advised him on other issues and became a spiritual supporter in the aftermath of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment. In 2000, Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In theory, Jackson should have had a smoother relationship with the next Democratic president, Barack Obama. The two shared a hometown in Chicago and ran in the same circles of politically influential Black leaders. Jackson’s eldest daughter was even the maid of honor at Barack and Michelle Obama’s wedding.
Civil rights activist, former CNN host, Rainbow/PUSH founder, and 2-time Democratic Presidential candidate (1984, 1988) Jesse Jackson died at the age of 84.
