Dukakis and Jackson: Two Roads, One Destination : Jackson Lets Us See Beyond Usual Limits

I support the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s campaign for President for more than symbolic reasons. Symbols often represent feelings. One can inspire the other to create something that is concrete.

Jackson has run a viable, historic and broad-based campaign for President. He has done more to restore a sense of patriotism among blacks than anyone else since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He has laid a foundation of hope and self-worth for the next generation. He has made me believe that I can be more than a black elected official. I can become an elected official, and I can become an elected official in areas that aren’t limited to minority representation.

My decision to become a Jackson delegate was woven within a historical setting. The date was March 7, the 23rd anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala., when hundreds of black students were attacked by the authorities after demonstrating for the right to vote. Jackson wanted to talk with me and Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta. Our conversation began in Ebenezer Baptist Church and ended at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. In that setting, Jackson urged us not to be bound by the limits of our imaginations. He let me see how impractical it would have been to believe, 20 years earlier, that the chairman of Atlanta’s Fulton County Commission, one of Georgia’s congressional representatives and a presidential candidate would stand together as men and leaders with black skin.

At that point I began to see Jackson as a symbol of the many other black men who had lived the lives of pioneers but had received no recognition. I decided that his candidacy in the long run was not quixotic, but very substantive even with the realization that he could not win his party’s nomination.

Actually, my interest in becoming a Jackson delegate began earlier, during the debate schedule organized for many of the Democratic candidates. At William and Mary College in Virginia, the party brought in the entire array of candidates to present themselves before the Democratic Leadership Council. Jackson came across as the only one with clear ideas about issues. It impressed me that he spoke about those issues passionately. He made it clear that the growing numbers of the homeless were a generational threat to our national security. He denounced the cycle of drugs and infiltration of crack into communities all across the country as a creeping sickness. He made it clear that as President he would take steps to stop the increasingly large number of teen-age girls becoming mothers when they were little more than children themselves.

As a black American and an elected official, I knew how urgently these issues required attention. Jackson offered ideas for their solution, ranging from redistribution of funds from what he saw as an overgrown defense Establishment to more programs geared to citizen participation. By the time he asked for my support as we stood in front of the King monument, I knew my response.

Still, it was a response that surprised many people, including my family in California. My mother, a former newspaper woman, believes that support of Jackson is a waste of valuable time. My attorney father probably would have agreed if he were still alive. And even though my sister is a closet Jackson supporter, she also sees no future in standing by a candidate who cannot possibly win.

But winning is a nebulous word. If Jackson is included in the rest of the campaign, if he continues to receive media respect (if not admiration), if he gains the power to control some aspects of the party’s future and platform, then he will have won more than any other black American in history.

Jackson himself summed it up at a special news conference on Monday. He told America that hope had been unleashed on our nation’s barrios, streets and ghettos as the Democratic Party united into a viable, broad-based coalition.

I believe that Jackson has helped re-educate America through his presidential campaign. While I may wind up supporting a party ticket that does not include him, I feel confident that Jackson will not withdraw from politics. Ideally, I’d like to see him become an elected official and serve his country as a senator, either from South Carolina or Illinois. A seat in the U.S. Senate would give him the power and freedom to speak on all the issues of national importance; anything else would be limiting.

It’s quite likely that America will not see a black President for a long time. But until that time does come, the Jackson campaign has done a lot to give blacks the full citizenship that we have been promised but have never received.