Remembering Jesse Jackson |
There were some good political speakers in the Eighties. John Connally, all but forgotten, had the rhythms of the southern stump. Mario Cuomo knew how to forge through the applause he generated, maintaining thereby his momentum. Ronald Reagan, veteran of radio and film, was the mic’s best friend, drawing you in by hanging ever so slightly back. Then there was the young Jesse Jackson.
AOC’s Breakout Performance
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Not a Serious Person
I’ve Faced Years of Criminal Prosecution — for Exercising Free Speech Rights in Europe
I first heard him after he returned from a trip to Syria, which had released to him an American pilot downed during a bombing raid over Lebanon. He spoke at a black church in D.C., after a long program. Next to last was Louis Farrakhan, the black crackpot who had been a calypso performer. He rocked the building, and I thought, They have topped their closer. Wrong. Jackson started slowly, reading names and telephone numbers for those who wished to pursue activism, but he warmed and built and finally blew the roof off. He was in his early forties then, and slim, and carried himself like a bullfighter.
His campaign was black identity, plus white liberals. I remember his strongest county in the Connecticut primary was Fairfield, RTC (richer than Cheevers). I followed him to Central America and Cuba, where he went, like AOC, to establish his foreign policy bona fides, and there I lost him. As from Syria, he returned home with prisoners, an assortment of drug dealers and religious believers that Castro doled out from his dungeons. But before that he appeared at a Methodist church in Havana, a small congregation before him, Castro seated on the chancel behind him. He delivered a slogan salad to the former, including the exhortation to “use your moral force” to get the United States out of Nicaragua. Castro patted his hands together gravely. Mr. Interlocutor, and Mr. Bones.
As the years passed, Jackson put on weight and lost substance. His place in demagogy was taken by Al Sharpton, in serious politics by Barack Obama. I do remember the image of him in the crowd at Obama’s victory party in 2008, visibly moved — regretful no doubt (who would not be?), but also gratified — for his race, and for his country.