▲ The Reverend Jesse Jackson (seated), yesterday at the United Center in Chicago.Afp Photo

David Brooks and Jim Cason

Correspondents

The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, August 20, 2024, p. 19

Chicago. The Reverend Jesse Jackson appeared on the podium on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, a figure who transformed the party both from within as a presidential candidate, and from without as a popular social leader and founder of the Rainbow Coalition with its slogan: keep the faith alive.

His words and impressive physical agility were stolen by Parkinson’s, but he is one of the few figures who deserve praise from living legendand as the Reverend Al Sharpton stated at a tribute to his career held alongside the convention: Every time an African American talks about democracy, Jesse is talking; every time we march, Jesse is walking..

Jackson, Sharpton and several veteran lawmakers, including Barbara Lee – famous for being the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against the war against Iraq – her colleague Maxine Waters and Representative Ro Khanna – grandson of one of Mahatma Gandhi’s advisors – among others, pointed out at the event held at the former headquarters of the Rainbow Coalition, was the one who changed the rules of the Democratic Party along with her electoral campaigns in 1984 and 1988, the precedent that made possible the arrival of Barack Obama to the presidency and that makes possible the presidential candidacy today of Kamala Harris as the first black woman, daughter of Hindu and Jamaican immigrants.

Jackson dared to shake up the party from the outside, by weaving and promoting coalitions between whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians, who, continuing the legacy of his mentor, Martin Luther King, placed the issue of economic justice at the center of his movement. “Jackson was committed to white, black and brown workers… to labor rights, and always accompanied the struggles of the labor movement,” recalled the former president of the national union of communication workers CWA Larry Cohen.

But he also shook the party by insisting on the demand against wars. War corrodes democracyJackson said, the magazine’s editor recalled. The NationKatrina vanden Heuvel. Jackson, she added, combined “the struggle against racial oppression at home and against imperial policies abroad… He is a man of peace and a citizen of the world.”

Jackson, several recalled, was dedicated to the anti-nuclear struggle, to the fight against apartheid In South Africa, he fought for an end to dirty wars supported by the United States in Central America, as well as the recognition of Palestine and peace in the Middle East; in fact, he was the first presidential candidate to address the issue of Palestinian rights.

James Zogby, the Palestinian-American leader of the Arab American Institute, noted that while various progressive coalitions in the United States refused to include Palestinians, Jackson consistently supported their struggle. At the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Zogby, whose parents came to this country illegally, was selected to formally nominate Jackson for presidential nomination. The son of an illegal immigrant nominated the great-grandson of slaves to be a presidential candidateZogby recalled at the tribute.

As many have pointed out, Jackson was also one of the first national leaders to fight for fair trade and against neoliberal policies, and in favor of what he called the collective economy.

African-American U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters commented: If I stand up and shout: in resistance, it’s because Jesse taught me how to do it. Everyone recalled how Jackson accompanied strikes and other multiracial social struggles, both here and internationally, always seeking to build alliances and insist on continuing the struggles of his predecessors.

He is present in almost all the struggles of the progressive currents within the Democratic Party, acknowledged the former presidential candidate and democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders. Jesse’s contribution to modern history is not just that he brought us together, but that he brought us together around a progressive agenda.said.

By the way, almost 40 years ago, an interview with Jackson was published in the first issue of The Day.