Early in Barack Obama's political career in Illinois, Jesse Jackson helped strike him down. Even now, Jackson's son, Jesse, Jr., is a more vocal Obama advocate than his better known father. Senator Obama and the elder Jackson have much in common: The two Black men emerged from Chicago's decayed South Side as champions of poor people. Both have a gift for public speaking. Both have run to be the first Black president of the U.S. There are long-standing friendships between some members of their families.
Yet the two are not close. Jesse Jackson, the trailblazer, is twenty years older, but was never Obama's mentor. Jackson has always been more flamboyant and confrontational, Obama more willing to work behind the scenes, within the system. Eight years ago, Obama, a little-known state senator, mounted an upstart challenge to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush, former Black Panther turned Senator, for his U.S. House seat. Jackson endorsed Rush. President Bill Clinton also joined the effort to stop the newcomer. Clinton overrode his policy of staying out of Democratic primaries to back Rush, who trounced Obama more than 2-to-1. "I already had a relationship with Bobby Rush," Jackson said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press.
That's not the only time Jesse Jackson was in Senator Obama's way. In 1995, he tried to arrange for his son to get the state Senate seat that Obama eventually won. Jackson wanted the incumbent, state Senator Alice Palmer, to run for Congress so the younger Jackson could replace her. She refused to go along because she was supporting Obama, who hadn't announced his campaign to succeed her yet. Jackson's son also rejected the plan and successfully ran for Congress instead. Late last year, Jesse Jackson Jr. even fussed at his father for writing a column questioning the commitment of Obama and other Democratic candidates, except John Edwards, to the needs of Black voters. The son wrote a response in The Chicago Sun-Times with the headline "You're wrong on Obama, Dad."
Their histories reflect the changing realities between the 1960s and the 1980s for a Black man seeking to become a political leader. Jesse Jackson, a minister, was already on Chicago's South Side when Obama moved there in 1985. Jackson had the ability to rally people to action. He had used it to put together Operation PUSH in Chicago, then to transform himself from a Chicago civil rights protest leader to a national figure who traveled the country to confront private companies or public officials he felt oppressed minorities or poor people. He also became a volunteer diplomat who traveled to Syria and Cuba where he won the release of U.S. prisoners. When he first ran for president in 1984, Jackson failed to win the Democratic nomination but still waged the most successful campaign by a Black candidate up to that time. He emerged as an important but controversial figure in Democratic politics.
Getting his political start in Chicago, Senator Obama didn't choose a public role at the head of civil rights marches but rather the quiet, behind-the-scenes position of community organizer, teaching poor people how to unite so they could step forward themselves. While Jesse Jackson was thinking nationally and internationally, Barack Obama was focused on Chicago's far South Side. The area's working class was disappearing in the wake of steel plant closings. Healthy neighborhoods had decayed into collections of empty storefronts that lacked the political clout to get their share of city services. Obama's focus was on getting potholes filled, parks cleaned up and students placed in summer jobs. Politically, he paid more attention to the city's first Black mayor, Harold Washington, than to Jackson. When Obama expanded his horizon beyond Chicago, he went to law school, came back and later ran for the state Legislature. Senator Obama's run was never the long shot that Jackson's was. He not only rivaled Jackson's soaring oratory abilities; he also followed the Internet fundraising lessons of others, out-organized rival Senator Hillary Clinton on the ground in caucus states and turned the system to his advantage. Now he's closer than any Black man in history to the U.S. presidency.
Today, Jesse Jackson supports Senator Obama's campaign but mostly from the sidelines. "I've known him long enough to trust him and admire him and be his No.1 fan," Jackson said. The Chicago headquarters of Operation PUSH was not far from where Barack Obama lived in the mid-1980s. Obama would sometimes go to hear Jackson's sermons but otherwise had little connection to him. Barack Obama's 1992 marriage to Michelle Robinson brought the families much closer. Michelle Robinson had gone to high school with Jackson's oldest child, Santita. Santita sang at the Obamas' wedding and became godmother to their daughter, Malia. Michelle Obama had often visited Jackson's home and gotten to know his other children. So when Obama began dating her, he met Jesse Jackson Jr., who also attended their wedding. The younger Jackson has become a close friend to Obama. He's a national co-chairman of the Senator's campaign.
One Obama advisor said, "I would describe it as a good relationship. It's one of mutual respect. They speak on a regular basis and share many common goals and concerns." Jesse Jackson Senator Obama once told him that attending a Jackson debate during the 1984 presidential campaign made him believe a Black man could someday win the White House. And 24 years later he is close to doing it. Senator Obama readily admits he has taken one thing from Jesse, and that he concluded that he needed to be a better public speaker to get his message on TV if he wanted to be effective. Jesse Jackson was the trailblazer and Barack Obama is widening and paving the road and turning it into a highway.
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