Jesse Jackson to Perform Nuptials

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has recently shifted his focus from presidential campaigns to social causes, plans to come to Orange County to officiate at the wedding of a prominent Palestinian-American businessman.

On Saturday, Jackson is scheduled to conduct a civil ceremony uniting Ahmad N. Bayaa, president of Southland Communications of Santa Ana, and Jill Marie Baumgartner, a representative of the Chanel Co. in Newport Beach, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Laguna Niguel, Bayaa said Tuesday.

The former presidential candidate will fly directly from the Washington demonstration commemorating the 25th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington, for the 8 p.m. ceremony and lavish celebration following, according to Jackson’s press secretary.

“He is going to be coming,” Frank Watkins said. “It’s on the schedule.”

Watkins said Jackson will leave Washington about 4 p.m. to make the ceremony. Whether Jackson will arrive by scheduled airline or charter, and whether he will receive a fee, Bayaa said, had not been worked out yet.

Bayaa, 35, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, said “we have somebody on standby” to conduct the ceremony if Jackson does not arrive in time.

Also expected to attend the ceremony, Bayaa said, is U.S. Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who asked Jackson to perform the wedding.

Bayaa said he asked Marwan Burgan, Dymally’s legislative director in Washington, to help arrange Jackson’s participation mainly because the civil rights leader is “a man I think is admired by a lot of people. He’s a man who represents a lot of the country’s conscience.”

Sending Bride a Message

Having Jackson officiate, Bayaa said, is a way of “sending my bride a message from me.”

Bayaa said he was “pleasantly surprised” when Jackson accepted. “This could be the event of the year in Orange County, besides President Reagan showing up.”

Bayaa, one of eleven children, said he is not active in either political party, nor is he involved in any activities involving the Middle East. He said he supported Jackson’s presidential campaign but was not very active in it.

Bayaa, a Long Beach resident, said he was also a supporter of Dymally but had not made “substantial” contributions to that campaign either.

The Bayaa wedding will be a contrast for Jackson--who this week joined Cesar Chavez in Delano as the farm workers’ leader broke his 36-day fast--and then pledged to fast three additional days himself.

Bayaa said the reception for 400 family members and guests from around the world will feature nouvelle cuisine and will cost around $50,000. There will be chamber music, a disc jockey playing American popular music, a band playing Arabic music, belly dancers and “a mini-Broadway show,” Bayaa said.

The couple plan to honeymoon in Paris and the south of France.

Another California wedding Jackson conducted in June provoked some controversy. When Jackson presided over the June wedding of Rebecca Steen, daughter of Beirut hostage Alann Steen, in Santa Cruz, shortly before the California primary, Newsweek called the ceremony a “media stunt,” which provoked an angry letter to the editor from Steen for using the event “as a metaphor for Jackson’s primary campaign.”