RIP Jesse Jackson

Was reading the New York Times obituary for Jesse Jackson. When his time and work with Martin Luther King was discussed I was surprised. Always knew that was part of his biography but his time on the public stage was so long, and varied, that it was easy for me to forget his connection to the famed civil right martyr.

Others can speak on the man and his career. Will stress it’s impossible to understand the present black political movement without knowing Jackson. He was a political outsider who had the nerve to assume he could run for the White House for a major party, following in the footsteps Shirley Chisholm (her run was in 1972). These proud members of the Democratic Party looked around, deciding they could represent the party as well as anyone else.

In 2026 such audacity doesn’t even make the news. Maybe that’s the reason I was surprised by the Jackson information I knew. The party outsider ended up a player. However, he never forgot his origin story by consistently demanding Democrats remember opening the doors of possibility, as wide as possible, is right and good politics.

Here he is in 1984, making the keynote speech at the Democratic Party Convention.