Confrontational Cleric : Pastor Takes On Street Criminals and Mixes Politics With Religion

Holy man or holy terror, the Rev. Michael Jackson is raising a ruckus in Inglewood. Just last month, two pipe bombs exploded outside his ramshackle drug rehabilitation center on 102nd Street.

No arrests have been made, and police say the motive for the bombings is unknown. But the list of Jackson’s critics is a long one. There are drug dealers, whom Jackson chases off the streets, and motel owners, whom he pickets over prostitution. There are also untold numbers of political adversaries, whom he infuriates with his stirring oratory at bitterly divided City Council meetings.

If one of those detractors was sending a message to him, Jackson is not listening. “You have to speak louder than that to get my attention, because I’m not going to stop,” the 45-year-old pastor declared with characteristic brusqueness. “We’re going to go after them, and we’re going to keep going after them.”

Lean and bespectacled, Jackson has a scholarly appearance belying his in-your-face style of Christianity. Recuperating addicts--about 60 reside at his Resurrection Ministries shelter near Hollywood Park--hail him as a one-of-a-kind hero, a fearless agent of God.

“He’s a great man, a great leader,” said Freddie Hayes, 40, a recovering alcoholic who has lived for nine months in Jackson’s vast, two-story apartment house, now threatened with closure in May if the city enforces a raft of code violations.

Jackson’s detractors have also swelled in number. The blunt-talking preacher has become a regular at City Hall, siding with Mayor Edward Vincent and a majority voting bloc in support of such secular causes as a proposed gun club and a newly built gambling casino.

The pastor’s high profile has added drama and rancor to a volatile political climate. Unlike other clerics who keep their religion and politics separate, Jackson seems to enjoy taking the spotlight, stirring up controversy.

Unconventional? Sure.

He is a former cocaine user who now rousts the men and women at his rehab center at 6 a.m. each weekday for marching and calisthenics--discipline training. He reads Islamic literature, studies Hebrew, preaches the Christian Gospel.

Fascinated with firearms, Jackson says he once owned a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun and a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Having a gun means he would be ready if, say, another Hitler type rises to power, he said. He plans to buy a weapon soon, but outside California to avoid registration laws. “The West wasn’t won with a registered gun,” Jackson said, laughing.

“I’m not afraid to tell a gangbanger, ‘Look, brother, this is not your turf. . . . It’s either you or me,’ ” said Jackson, who talks with vigilante defiance, yet describes himself as a get-off-the-duff doer who knows the rules and works within the system.

“I was once defined as a left-wing radical Democrat,” the cleric boasted, laughing again, “until everybody found out that I’m a Republican.”

Jackson once dreamed of running for office. Years ago, he filled out papers to run for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. But religion claimed him--his mother, Helena, had prayed during her pregnancy that she would have a preacher. And Jackson, aware of the long odds against beating an incumbent, withdrew before the race began, alienated by what he perceived as corruption.

“Politicians who had influence in minority communities at that time were bought and paid for by outside interests,” Jackson said, his tone serious, almost angry. “Why be a politician when you can buy one?”

Jackson established his rehabilitation ministry in Compton in the mid-1980s and at first kept his distance from City Hall. Then, last year, he moved to a larger shelter in Inglewood. Eventually, he began showing up at Inglewood council meetings with a dozen or more of his followers, teaching them politics, he said.

By jumping into stormy debates, Jackson is seen by some critics as a spokesman for the mayor, a firebrand willing to express the views of the City Council majority in ways that elected officials dare not.

“Jackson’s role is to do the mayor’s dirty work,” said activist Michael Triggs, 37, a former Inglewood school board member. “Whatever good works Rev. Jackson is doing are going to be overshadowed and ultimately harmed by his association with Ed Vincent.”

Others agree. The Rev. M. M. Merriweather, an officer of the 250-member Inglewood Ministers Assn., noted that Vincent will be up for reelection this fall. “Mayor Vincent needs a minister’s mouthpiece, and Rev. Jackson is the only one he can find,” Merriweather said.

Jackson countered: “Maybe the mayor and I agree on quite a bit . . . (but) I’m not tied up with anybody.”

Vincent, who was fined $16,000 by the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission for the misuse of campaign funds in the late 1980s, lashed out against the critics--negative people who show up at meetings “to destroy this city,” he said--and lauded Jackson for feeding and housing recovering addicts, prostitutes and the homeless, all without government funds.

“Where would those (addicts) be if they didn’t have him?” Vincent asked. “We can all run our mouths at Tuesday nights’ City Council meetings, but he’s actually doing something.”

Jackson’s activism at City Hall has been especially controversial because of the highly charged politics of Inglewood, a city with high crime and unemployment but also substantial revenues from Hollywood Park, the Forum and two major hospitals.

Although nearly all white in the 1960s, the city now contains more than 90% African American and Latino residents. Racial and political tensions are often intermingled, sometimes in surprising ways. One faction has accused Vincent, who is black, of favoring the interests of white absentee landlords and big-business owners over those of minority renters and homeowners.

Vincent denies favoring any group, but acknowledges encouraging investment by outside business interests. At recent council meetings, sniping has accompanied issues large and small: from a projected budget deficit to whether the audience should be permitted to applaud, which it is not.

Jackson’s critics say his comments at meetings are sometimes tactless and ill-conceived. On March 29, the pastor likened himself to a dictator. A week earlier, he rose to advocate the approval of a gun club to be operated by one of the mayor’s friends and campaign supporters.

“So why do we have drive-by shootings where people will come and spray (bullets) and everybody gets killed but the intended target?” Jackson demanded, pausing for drama before offering his own answer. “Because nobody really ever learned how to use a gun. Nobody really taught these people the purpose of guns.”

When a proposed casino at Hollywood Park became snagged in legal technicalities--state law does not allow a corporation to run a card club--Vincent accused Gov. Pete Wilson of placing excessive licensing requirements on a would-be employer in a predominantly minority community. Councilwoman Judy Dunlap objected, accusing Vincent of grandstanding to aid his reelection efforts and prompting a lecture from Jackson about prejudice.

“I have a problem with white folk telling me about racism,” Jackson began. What appears to be legal protocol to whites is often perceived as racism by blacks, he said. That was the case, Jackson continued, when a master whipped a slave, when Rosa Parks was ordered to the back of the bus, and it is the same now with the card club, which is expected to provide 3,000 jobs when, or if, it opens.

“I believe right now in the city of Inglewood that you’ve (awakened) a sleeping giant,” Jackson warned Dunlap at the March 8 meeting, referring to black voters. “I think you’d better check yourself. . . . You don’t know what racism is because you’ve been on the wrong side of racism.”

Before the pipe bombs exploded at Jackson’s shelter, he and his followers had begun confronting suspected drug dealers and picketing small motels that he accused of catering to prostitutes.

The first bomb exploded about 9 p.m. March 19 in the wheel well of Jackson’s 1986 motor home, blowing apart two tires, punching a hole in the floor and scattering debris inside the vehicle. The second bomb, detonated two days later, apparently exploded in a driveway and caused no damage. Neither bomb caused injuries. Neither did they soften Jackson’s hard-edged approach.

The preacher’s latest target is the city bureaucracy. Inglewood inspectors, citing rotted beams, unrepaired fire damage and over-stressed second-floor walkways, have ordered the hulking, beige home of Resurrection Ministries to be fixed up or vacated by May 15. Further complicating the problem: The shelter does not comply with zoning codes.

“They may be right,” Jackson said. “But is it (acceptable) if I turn these people out and put them right back on the streets? (City inspectors) are saying . . . we’re not allowed to teach. But if we wanted to sell drugs up and down the street, we can do that. It’s zoned for that. . . . It’s zoned for anything that you want to do but correct the problem.”

Jackson, who estimated the cost for repair work at $400,000, has yet to begin. But Councilman Garland Hardeman, who called the pastor a miracle worker, has vowed to help resolve the zoning problem.

Likewise, Vincent said he will do all he can to keep Jackson’s ministry alive and in place. The mayor said he may try to extend the repair deadline and solicit contributions from big businesses.

Jackson, who trains his followers as office workers to keep down overhead costs, says he knows he has enemies. But then, he pointed out, so did Jesus.

“They killed him,” Jackson said. “Jesus’ attitude was pretty nasty too. He was totally against the status quo.”

Turn the other cheek? Not Jackson. Hell no.

“I may not be the type of Christian that will allow you to kick me in the face,” Jackson went on. “I may be the type of Christian that will confront you. If we’re not going to challenge things, then nothing’s going to change. And I’m going to challenge, and challenge, and challenge.”