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CounterPunch+ Exclusives

Jesse Jackson: A Man of Soul

Jesse Jackson at the United Nations, 2012. Photo: UN.

Brother Jesse was a large man. He was Brother Jesse to me and I was Brother Warner to him as soon as we were introduced. He was large physically. He dominated all the space around him. But it wasn’t his physical presence that impressed.

Brother Jesse was a preacher man in the great Southern Black tradition. I saw him inspire an auditorium full of white diplomats and business leaders in Brussels to stand up, hold hands, and sing “We Shall Overcome” with him.

Much is being written about Jesse Jackson’ accomplishments: civil rights leader with Martin Luther King Jr., presidential candidate, founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. But there was an emotional appeal to a certain tradition that he represented and glorified. Rocking with James Brown at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. People speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street while worshipping with Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in New York.  That tradition also existed on the South Side of Chicago, Watts in Los Angeles, and elsewhere following the great Black migration North.

Brother Jesse was all soul, an integral part of that tradition. Compare his rhythm, compare his emotional appeal to the cold intellect of Barack Obama – no Brother Barack here. Obama, legend has it, replied “Thank you” when a girlfriend told him she loved him. Or when President Obama wiped away a very small tear when Aretha Franklin brought the house down at the Kennedy Center Honors with her incredible performance of “ (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.”

Before George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, Jesse Jackson mattered. Without all the qualities of a Martin Luther King Jr. or the diplomatic polish of Andrew Young, Brother Jesse was there.

And there are no descendants of that tradition. He was unique as a person, and as a representative of a civil rights movement in the United States at a particular historic moment that has lost leadership and momentum.

Brother Jesse, Brother Warner salutes you.

Daniel Warner is the author of An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations. (Lynne Rienner). He lives in Geneva.

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