Having covered the Rev. Jesse Jackson on and off for more than half a century, I’ve watched him become one of the most quoted, and most misunderstood, figures in American public life.

One line in particular has followed him for decades. In 1993, Jackson told an audience of inner-city youths in Chicago, “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps … then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Journalist David Masciotra, in his book “I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters,” gave Jackson an opportunity to explain the remark.

As Jackson explained, he and his family lived in Washington, D.C., during much of the 1990s. Gun violence was epidemic throughout the country; violent crime rates reached their historic peaks in many American cities. Shootings were happening on his own block, and one happened while his wife was standing outside their home.

The fear of young Black men was a new feeling for him.

“In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, without exception, I would feel less secure and more in danger if a crowd following me was white,” he told Masciotra.

Recall that Jackson grew up in the Jim Crow South at a time when lynching hadn’t quite died out. He joined the Civil Rights Movement at a time when registering voters could get you killed. He was present at Selma and Montgomery, where........

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