Why Jackson Won’t Quit

Apparently, he’s back.

After revelations that an extra-marital relationship had produced a child, the Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledged the affair on Jan. 18 and said he would withdraw temporarily from public life. Following the inauguration of a conservative president and a well-attended support rally sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton in a Harlem church last Sunday, Jackson changed his mind.

His quick retraction raises the question: Would civil rights leadership have suffered a vacuum without Jackson? The question is loaded, especially for many blacks, but the answer is probably the same, for different reasons: No, it would not have.

Imagine the reasons on a continuum, beginning with those who could care less about Jackson. Despite the leader-of-the-black-masses image projected by the media, there is considerable antipathy toward Jackson in some quarters, based on everything from rumors to rhyming to backlash to overexposure. Both the revelations of his extramarital affair and his sudden return to public life probably won’t endear him any more. Then there’s youth and the psychological distance many of them hold toward the civil rights era, in general.

But many wouldn’t worry because their concept of civil rights is primarily secular. That Jackson is a Baptist minister is only remotely relevant to the pursuit of principles such as racial equality. The clear moral undertones to those principles have, over time, become manifest in laws whose language eschews moral rationales. Nor are those laws concerned with the content of privacy, only its protection. The private morality of their leading advocates is fairly irrelevant. To make private conduct a measure of ability is to miss the whole point in the service of gossip.

A related reason sounds in the mainly localized, grass-roots nature of most civil rights work. In the trenches of employment-discrimination lawsuits, racial-profiling investigations or access-to-education controversies, leaders are not national. They need not be male or black, and there is never just one who can overcome more powerful adversaries. Organizations committed to civil rights will do their work, regardless. As a spokesman for larger issues, Jackson helps shape public consciousness. But he is not “the man,” because civil rights don’t rely on one.

On the other hand, the notion of civil rights is viewed by many through a bifocal Christian lens. It’s no coincidence that the civil rights movement began with ministers such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and finds continued force in Sharpton. The relationship between Christian morality and civil rights precepts is cross-referential and mutually reinforcing. They finish each other’s sentences.

This relationship between Christian morality and civil rights is more revealing than the customary visits of liberal white politicians to black churches during political campaigns. It is an aspirational model of living through articles of faith, expressed in a fluid language of allegory and surrender, protest and redemption. African American Christianity can bridge the theoretical gulf in civil rights doctrine between individual rights and group identity. Few do it better than Jackson. However one might condemn Jackson’s loss of control and disloyalty to his wife, he unequivocally owned his transgressions. For those who agree, the ultimate message-- even for leaders--is pretty clear: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

So, the question of Jackson’s initial withdrawal from leadership is complicated and loaded. So is his retraction.

Recall that much of Jackson’s prominence occurred amid the policies and court appointments of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Then much changed. Indeed, the whole question of civil rights leadership changed dramatically during Bill Clinton’s eight years as president. Threats to civil rights gains did not subside, particularly with regard to affirmative action. Yet, a legacy of Clinton’s presidency is reflected in Jackson’s diminished role.

Our famous dialogue on race relations, the one we were encouraged to think would widen and deepen in the midst of Clinton’s dedication to core values and his establishment of a traveling advisory panel, was severely diluted by contradictions at the political center. “Mend it, don’t end it,” the Lani Guinier “dis-appointment,” welfare reform and the slavery apology were all the product of appeasement politics that, whatever their intentions, addressed civil rights priorities with a confusing murkiness. Clinton, who could have been the nation’s strongest civil rights leader, backed off. Jackson, a friend and advisor to the president, lost his edge.

Few others in the top circles of civil rights leadership commanded the new language well for the rest of us. This may now change. Not only are civil rights at further risk by the mere specter of an attorney general historically hostile to them and by the prospect of conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. Civil rights principles of equal opportunity, democratic participation and simple fairness are also challenged by the perception held by many blacks (and many others) that George W. Bush appropriated the presidency in a brazen spectacle of unearned privilege.

It was to these milestones in national events that Jackson was speaking, like the Jackson of old, when his voice suddenly changed, his tone deeply personal, his private flaws exposed. In a sense, Jackson has been this way before. He told us during his 1984 speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was “a public servant,” not “a perfect servant.” Then he added, “God is not finished with me yet.”

What’s different now that Jackson has returned so quickly after confessing weakness is his apparent perception that the threats to civil rights are reaching a point of no more politics-as-usual. People of color cannot afford his retreat. Leader disposability, even temporarily, is a luxury the poor can’t buy. The stakes are still too high, the need for (imperfect) leadership on civil rights too great. Even for those whose life circumstances allow them less anxiety today, a recession or a Republican administration can destroy that tomorrow.

What is demanded, then, must be absolute defiance. Defy critics. Defy enemies. Jackson’s retraction suggests that one can’t back down even for a week. He does not appear to worry that the public, including his supporters, may need time to digest news that he and his family have known for years. It’s as if he cannot worry. He will not concern himself with what a broader public might think. He’s not waiting for forgiveness. Exigency ignores scandals--even those with strong moral implications. There’s no spin here. Either you get it, or you don’t.

If this is so, then right or wrong, we might just be witnessing a truly revolutionary act for a public and religious figure. Because there’s no going back now.