Sees Harm From Media, Party Leaders : Ugly Scenes Spur Jackson to Talk on Barrier of Race

In the predawn darkness Monday, a few curious neighbors gathered in this Appalachian hamlet to see a troop of reporters descend on the small house where presidential candidate Jesse Jackson had spent the night.

Asked how he planned to vote in today’s primary, one neighbor retorted: “I ain’t voting for no damn nigger.”

Nor had the larger crowd that had stayed up late Sunday night to meet Jackson’s arrival been particularly supportive. Many were receptive, but some shouted epithets when his motorcade pulled up, and one man appeared threatening enough that the Secret Service did not allow Jackson to make his usual rounds shaking hands.

“I was embarrassed the way that people acted. . . . There’s still prejudice here,” said Junior Cook, the unemployed 30-year-old white coal miner with whom Jackson had stayed.

Although it is not uncommon for a presidential candidate of any race to confront a hostile audience or even to receive threats, the incidents prodded Jackson into an unusually long discussion with reporters Monday of the liabilities of being a black candidate.

What Jackson sees as the most damaging form of racism comes not from open, unapologetic bigots like Cook’s neighbor, but rather from the media and his own party leaders.

“Some people are very raw, very direct, (saying) ‘I would not vote for a nigger.’ Other people are able to use sand to cover up their mess,” he said.

Jackson’s comments were laced with bitterness, and he made it clear that he believes his race has been a barrier between himself and the Democratic establishment. Those feelings could carry particular significance this fall, when the party is likely to be looking to Jackson to draw black voters to the polls for Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, its probable nominee.

‘Running Against Head Wind’

Both the media and Democratic leaders, Jackson said, wrote off his campaign’s chances from the outset. He described it as “running against a head wind of culture and media and pundits.”

He faulted the media for constantly asking in stories and polls whether voters would accept a black candidate.

“If I’m asked, ‘Why run?,’ the people are asked, ‘Why vote?’ ” Jackson said. “To raise the (race) issue is to make it part of (the voter’s) decision.”

Convinced that no black presidential candidate can succeed, “the party itself is using its strength to get the candidate it thinks can win,” he said. Jackson has complained repeatedly that Democratic leaders are exploiting party rules to deny him his fair share of delegates at this summer’s convention.

“The real question is, will the white leadership assume any of the responsibility of mind transformation?” Jackson said.

Exploited Racism

Not only has Jackson failed to receive the support of the party establishment, he said, but some leading Democrats have exploited racism against him to further their own political aims.

He had particular criticism of a moderate-to-conservative group, the Democratic Leadership Council, which had backed Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. in last March’s round of Super Tuesday primaries.

Former Virginia Gov. Charles Robb, Sen. Terry Sanford (D-N.C.) “and the DLC crowd put all their eggs in Gore’s basket. . . . Their basic line was a vote for anybody but Gore is a vote for Jackson, which was real subtle stuff,” Jackson said.

“It was not aggressive and overt. There were no catcalls, no attacks,” he added. “It was a big factor in trying to corner the vote to protect what they saw as their traditional interests.”

In New York, Jackson faced what he described as “the most aggressive campaign waged on race. . . . It was not until we got to New York that the airwaves were just full of attack.”

Rocky Relations With Jews

Jackson has long had rocky relations with Jews. Many cannot forgive his association with black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, an avowed anti-Semite, or the fact that Jackson once referred to New York with the slur “Hymietown.”

Jackson blamed New York Mayor Edward I. Koch in particular for heightening the tension by proclaiming that any Jew would be crazy to vote for Jackson. When Koch attacked Jackson’s positions on issues, Jackson said, “those were smoke screens, basically about race.”

The neighbors who had heckled Jackson’s arrival here had contended that his race was not the reason for their criticism. They insisted that Jackson was trying to exploit and exaggerate the area’s misery for his own political gain.

Jackson estimated that the group of hecklers numbered 600, although others said it was less than 200.

The Rev. Virgil Lemon, a Baptist minister, told a reporter for the local Register-Herald: “You can take poor people and use them for a lobbying tool. I think it’s unfair to lobby on the backs of poor people.”