The Democratic National Convention will mark many transitions, not the least of them a generational passing of the torch.
President Biden this week is effectively handing control of the party, and the 2024 presidential nomination, to Vice President Kamala Harris — an 81-year-old with decades in public life ceding the national stage to his 59-year-old protege.
Sunday night, on a less prominent stage, the party’s most ardent progressives stopped to recognize another leader and another transition: Several hundred people streamed into the auditorium at Rainbow PUSH headquarters to rain praise and affirmation on the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.
Jackson is 82 and living with Parkinson’s disease. A year ago, he appeared frail and spoke only a few words as he formally stepped down as president of the organization he created in the 1970s (the PUSH is for People United to Save Humanity) as a force for civil rights and economic equality.
Sitting in a wheelchair, Jackson soaked in the celebration Sunday night from the front of the auditorium where he had so many times urged on his followers. For more than three hours, he received a constant stream of admirers who said they had been trained and inspired by him over the decades. All the while, prominent Democrats spoke from the stage.
From Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), to the Rev. Al Sharpton, to independent presidential candidate Cornel West, they agreed: Jackson and his work as a groundbreaking Black presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988 sowed the political field for the eventual blossoming of other Black leaders, including Harris.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) was the first of half a dozen left-leaning members of the House to say their careers might not have happened but for the inspiration of Jackson, who was born in Greenville, S.C., became a lieutenant to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and launched his rights crusades in Chicago.
“He made sure that every single person had a place to stand. Everybody was somebody,” Jayapal said, echoing Jackson’s signature “I am somebody” refrain. She mentioned all the groups Jackson welcomed into his organization — multiple races, ethnicities, LGBTQ individuals, farmworkers and more. “And don’t forget that civil rights and economic justice were deeply intertwined, and nobody, nobody made that argument better than the Rev. Jesse Jackson.”
“We stand on your shoulders, Rev. Jesse Jackson,” Jayapal said to resounding applause. “For every elected official we will see on that [convention] stage for the next several days, we are here on your shoulders. We are here because you laid the path for us.”
The Nation, a venerable magazine of America’s political left, sponsored the Jackson celebration. Publisher and former editor Katrina vanden Heuvel carried a printed copy of the 1988 editorial in which the magazine endorsed Jackson. She noted that he had been an early voice for decreasing the size of the U.S. military and shifting the savings into domestic programs. Vanden Heuvel called Jackson “a man of peace and a great citizen of the world.”
Many of those on stage, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), spoke of how they had followed Jackson since their youth, galvanized into lives of public service by Jackson’s ringing speeches at the 1984 and 1988 Democratic conventions.
In 1988, Khanna recalled, Jackson had said he would not be content to be a small boat, plying the waters in a safe harbor; that he was intent on being out in a big boat, in the open ocean of the world’s great challenges, like apartheid in South Africa and economic injustice in America.
Jackson accumulated more delegates in the 1988 race than any other candidate except Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, who would go on to a resounding loss to George H.W. Bush. Two opponents who won fewer delegates than Jackson that year: then Sen. Joe Biden and future Vice President Al Gore.
Jackson’s ringing oratory to the delegates at that year’s Democratic convention built with the cadences and rhythm of his years as a Baptist preacher. No one listening that night, at the Omni in Atlanta, would have mistaken what they heard for a concession speech.
“I’m tired of sailing my little boat, far inside the harbor bar,” he said near the end of the address. “I want to go out where the big ships float, out on the deep where the great ones are. And should my frail craft prove too slight for waves that sweep those billows o’er, I’d rather go down in the stirring fight than drowse to death at the sheltered shore.”
“We’ve got to go out, my friends, where the big boats are.”
By the time Jackson concluded, roaring “Keep hope alive!” once, twice … four times, Democratic delegates were rhapsodic. Some wept.
When he spoke, Sharpton described Jackson’s remarkable rise, “born in the Deep South, in the back of the bus, and growing to be a world leader.” He credited Jackson with creating the language still spoken by progressives, particularly Black leaders.
Some might say that Jackson, laid low by disease, “can’t walk like he used to and talk like he used to,” Sharpton said.
His voice rising, the MSNBC commentator suggested those people would be wrong. “I want you to know that every time a Black opens their mouth and talks about hypocrisy, Jesse Jackson is talking!” he shouted, as the crowd jumped to its feet. “Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is marching!”
Applause and shouts of affirmation drowned out Sharpton’s conclusion. A video screen flashed on Jackson, a small smile breaking his lips.
More than 90 minutes later, the crowd had thinned. A moderator from the Nation hinted that Jackson might speak. All eyes trained on the front of the Rainbow PUSH auditorium and a hush fell. But no words came.
Soon, a platoon of Jackson aides pushed his wheelchair to a waiting van, which rolled away slowly into the Chicago night.
