THE passing of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died last month of a rare neurological disorder in his Chicago home at the age of 84, marks the end of an epoch in African-American history specifically, and American history more broadly. Jackson was one of those rare personages who blended activism with sustained intellectual cogitation. Over a decades-long career in which he almost changed the American political and activist landscape singlehanded, he seems to have popped up at every decisive moment in American history.
For Americans of a certain age, the lasting memory of Jackson will be of that night at Grant Park in November 2008 when he shed tears as candidate Barack Obama gave a rousing victory speech after defeating Republican candidate John McCain to become the first ever black person to rise to America’s highest office. Many have speculated about why Jackson was so emotional on that night, but one good guess is that he was moved to tears at the sight of a dream realised. To cry on that occasion was the least a man who had thrown himself into the fight for black dignity and arguably paved the way for the improbable rise of Obama could do.
But that was not the only occasion when Rev. Jackson was on the scene as history was unfolding. As a young organizer, he was also right there at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, when bullets from James Earl Ray’s rifle cut down Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his prime. Following the assassination of the charismatic civil rights activist, Mr. Jackson never looked back and, in the justified opinion of many, rightly inherited the mantle of leadership of the black community and people across the racial divide, agitating for a fair share. That Rev. Jackson had all the tools to succeed was never in doubt: the looks, the vocal inflections, the ability to command a room, the pastoral cadence, and a charisma that is given only to the very few.
It came as no surprise that Rev. Jackson would go ahead to shake up the American political establishment, running for the presidency in 1984 (Run, Jesse, Run!) and then in 1988 (Win, Jesse, Win!). Rev. Jackson fell short, but that was hardly the point, and as history continues to remind us, some losses are more triumphant than victories. His all too predictable losses on the two occasions he ran for president were of that sort, for by making the very idea plausible, he was preparing the ground for the person who would eventually get over the line. In a way, you could say that he too was building on the foundation laid earlier by George Edwin Taylor (1904) and Shirley Chisholm (1974), the first black man and woman respectively to run for America’s highest office. Like them, Mr. Jackson was a forerunner and an inspiration.
But he also spread his tentacles far and wide, committing to the plight of the underprivileged everywhere, and famously taking the side of the democratic phalanx in Nigeria’s ultimately successful struggle to dislodge the military from power. We are heartened by President Tinubu’s decision to send a high-powered Nigerian delegation to attend his interment. Rev. Jackson’s transition comes at a difficult time for African-Americans, and if we take comfort from anything, it is from the realisation that he left behind a secure legacy and a train of formidable successors. America is a freer country because of his activism. May his soul rest in peace.