When the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Chicago, he was a classic nobody nobody sent: He was from the South, Black and in his 20s. By the clannish rules of Chicago politics circa 1964, he shouldn’t have amounted to much.

But he became somebody.

And now that he’s gone and a procession of memorial services will begin Thursday, these questions come to mind: Did Chicago make Jackson who he was? And to what extent did Jackson make the city what it is today?

The battles he fought here and mostly won helped earn him a national profile. They also made the city and the country more equitable and just. And he did it the Chicago way — direct, in your face, backing down only as tactical retreat. Rarely wavering and never giving up.

Beginning in 1966 with Operation Breadbasket, Jackson’s first assignment from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he used boycotts to force A&P, Pacific Tea Co. and other grocery chains to give Black job applicants a fair shot. The grocers gave in: The power of Jackson’s boycott left them no choice.

Jackson used his knack for grabbing attention as a tool. Along with Al Raby, head of the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, Jackson helped select Marquette Park as the target for a 1966 fair housing march, at which racist white hecklers infamously threw rocks, bricks and bottles and hit King in the head. Jackson’s PR instincts at times played out as theatrical or self-serving. After witnessing King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, Jackson rushed back to Chicago to tell the story. During a stirring Chicago City Council speech, he wore a turtleneck he said was stained with King’s blood. That earned him a........

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