The enduring dignity of Jesse Jackson : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2001+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2F54%2Fbdd8087f459487998a2bb06f132b%2Fap8401170272.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2001+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F00%2F54%2Fbdd8087f459487998a2bb06f132b%2Fap8401170272.jpg" class="img" alt="The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands on the steps of the Hinds county courthouse in Jackson, Mississippi, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1984 after leading a large groups students and supporters from the Jackson State University campus to the Courthouse to register voters." fetchpriority="high"/> The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands on the steps of the Hinds county courthouse in Jackson, Mississippi, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1984 after main a big teams college students and supporters from the Jackson State College campus to the Courthouse to register voters. Tannen Maury/ASSOCIATED PRESS/AP disguise caption

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Tannen Maury/ASSOCIATED PRESS/AP I lined the Rev. Jesse Jackson from the mid 1970's, once I was a scruffy underground press reporter, and he was the younger minister who had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and was there when Dr. King was assassinated.

He was matchlessly eloquent and compelling, however he had his critics, each political and private. Politics in Chicago may be fierce and fractious.

I went all the way down to Mississippi in 1984 to cowl his first marketing campaign for president; by then I used to be working for NPR. At a press convention at a college in Jackson, one other reporter from Chicago and I observed the watch on Jackson's wrist. It was gold, thick, and bejeweled.

We requested, "What are you able to inform us about your watch, Reverend Jackson?"

He glanced down with disdain. It was a present from an African head of state, he informed us, who appreciated his work for social justice.

We requested, "Would this costly present make you help his insurance policies when you turned president? Ought to presidential candidates take priceless private presents from overseas leaders?"

The reverend fumed. As we filed out of the classroom, Jackson took us each in his robust grip to ask, "You boys fly down from The Large Windy simply to present me junk a few watch?" And he did not say junk.

The Jackson marketing campaign rolled on via Meridian, Natchez, and Hattiesburg. Lots of the cities had been infamous datelines in the course of the Civil Rights Motion. He'd remind crowds that there have been many unregistered Black voters in these counties — he was working to alter that — and recall the story of David slaying Goliath to thunder that unregistered voters had been, "Rocks, simply laying round…

"It is 1984 now!" Jackson would peal. "Fingers that when picked cotton can now decide presidents."

The crowds would increase their fingers to cheer, and dab their eyes.

We reporters had a few different small skirmishes with the reverend on his marketing campaign swing. However the final evening on the path ended with a prayer assembly in a church, the place Jackson summoned the identical energy to awaken a small congregation as he would a crowd of hundreds. As he referred to as on parishioners to sing "Simply A Nearer Stroll with Thee", considered one of his aides leaned over to me in a church pew to say, "The reverend would really like you to affix him within the Amen Nook."

Reporters shouldn't be part of candidates on marketing campaign platforms. However it was a church, stuffed with individuals who had lived via historical past, and now sang in prayer. Typically, even reporters have human responses. When The Rev. Jackson died this week on the age of 84, I felt blessed to do not forget that one evening in Mississippi, I obtained to face within the Amen Nook with Jesse Jackson. His phrases appeared to pierce the heavens.