- Hi, I'm Hermene Hartman " with "N'Digo Studio," and thank you for being with us.

I've got a very special guest today.

He's a family friend.

I've watched him actually grow up.

Now, that's full disclosure.

He was elected to Congress in 1995 in a very competitive race.

He served as congressman of the Second Congressional District, and he's the son of civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and Jacqueline Jackson.

He served in Congress for 17 years.

He was guilty of misuse of campaign fund for personal funds.

He went to jail, as did his wife.

- Today I manned up and tried to accept responsibility for the errors of my ways, (cameras snapping) and I still believe in the resurrection.

- Fall from grace is complete.

Jesse Jackson went from an enormously respected, charismatic, long-term member of Congress.

So it's a day of deep sadness.

- And he was in prison from 2013 to 2015, and today, we're going to talk.

We wanna catch up with life with Jesse Jackson Jr. N'digo Studio Ndigo Studio studio.

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♪ N'Digo Studio - Jesse, it's so good to see you, and I'm glad you're with us today.

- Hermene, thank you for having me.

- You're welcome.

Let's start from the very beginning.

Let's start at home as a child growing up in a political household, a social justice household, a civil rights household, lotta activity.

Who's who in the household?

What was your childhood like?

How did it pattern?

- It was really growing up in a ministry.

- Hmm.

- I didn't see our home as political.

I saw it as a calling, and being Jesse Jackson Jr. has its challenges.

To observe my father over the course of his public ministry, which became our family ministry, we developed an understanding that we had a responsibility for service to others, and that service included our understanding of the most effective way to follow the precepts of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, and so it's not my politics that makes me religious, it's my religion that makes me political, and it makes our family political, and that leads to the most non-violent form of that engagement, social justice.

- Hmm.

So why did you go into politics?

How did you come about going into Congress?

- I saw disparities on the south side of Chicago and in the south suburbs.

We had, at the hour of my announcement, three people for every one job on the south side of Chicago, and in the northwest- - High unemployment rate.

- High unemployment, long transportation to work rates.

Three jobs for every one person on the north side of Chicago.

So I saw the imbalance, and the imbalance was tied to the infrastructure, and so 17 years, I made the argument that the infrastructure needs to be balanced, that we need and deserve Hyatt, Hilton, Fairmont, Amazon, UPS, Federal Express on the south side of Chicago, just like they have it on Michigan Avenue and downtown Chicago, and when I ran in 1995, I wasn't planning on winning.

What I planned on doing was- - You didn't think you would win?

- I did not.

I was running against very formidable people that we're all familiar with.

- All seasoned, veteran politicians.

- All seasoned, on-the-ground politicians, but what was lacking was vision and articulation of a broader problem other than, I've been serving in the Senate forever, I should go to Congress.

I've been serving in the state legislature, and so I brought a new idea to Congress, that it was time for a change, that it was time for a new generation of Chicagoans to enter public life.

I woke up just as surprised on Election Day, just like everyone else was.

- You brought home $2.5 billion into the Second Congressional District, and you solved some problems.

Ford Heights had a brown water problem.

You solved that.

You did something for the Pullman, which we know now as the Pullman Historical District.

You made the pathway for Barack Obama, our president, to make that a national park.

2.5 billion.

That's a lot of money.

Give me the accomplishments of your congressional.

Tenure - Infrastructure.

When I was elected to Congress in 1995, the Metro stations, for example, from Hyde Park all the way to 93rd Street, were temporary stations that were built 95 years before I was elected to Congress.

I demanded that the ICC and that the Metro Authority change those Metro stations if in fact they wanted appropriations from the federal government.

In other words, I used the leverage of my office.

I also used the leverage of my name to bring infrastructure to the south side of Chicago.

I didn't run for mayor.

People expected that I would.

I didn't run for the United States Senate, even though Barack Obama approached me first about whether or not I would be running for the US Senate, and I said no.

I had some projects on the south side and south suburbs that I need to fix and to finish because I wanted to change the quality of life for people, and I felt at that time, Hermene, that I was young enough that I could serve long enough to deliver for the people of the Second Congressional District, and not see myself as on some kind of personal ambition, I need to get to the next office as quickly as I can.

That wasn't my interest, and I hope one of the lessons that comes to young interested public servants in the future is that they hang around in the office long enough to develop the tenure, to develop the seniority necessary to change things on the ground and improve the quality of life for people in our area.

What committees did you serve on?

I was an appropriator.

Who was on appropriations.

I was the only Democratic appropriator for the entire state of Illinois.

And so congressmen and mayors from around the state would come to my office asking me to carry their water on the Appropriations Committee.

Not only was I appropriating money from my district, but I also appropriated money for the city of Chicago and for Aurora and for Decatur.

My responsibility as a congressman from the South Side of Chicago was to see my district.

But my responsibility in committee was the state of Illinois.

- Name the top three things that you learned as a congressman.

- Number one, I had to situate and figure out where I was in Congress as an African American first.

When I came into Congress, Newt Gingrich was the speaker, and there was very little that Democrats could do in the Congress of the United States.

We couldn't pass any legislation.

In fact, that particular Congress was pursuing something called the Contract with America.

Some of us called it the Contract on America.

So Democratic legislation wasn't passing.

What I did during that era was to figure out who I was.

When I was elected in 1995, I was the 91st African American to ever be elected to Congress since the inception out of 11,700 people who served in Congress.

So I had an obligation to the history of African Americans from the inception of the Republic, but in a real sense, from 1619 to 1995.

All of that history mattered, to my service.

I mapped out that timeline.

The late Frank Watkins and I wrote a book between 1995 and 2000, called a more Perfect Union.

And we're advancing new American rights to kind of lay out what that.

What that meant.

Okay, now we're going to get to that.

But, Jesse, let me ask you a hard question.

You went to prison for two years.

What did you learn from your imprisonment?

First, I learned to accept responsibility for my behavior.

I was in deep shame.

I had no one to blame.

I was guilty, I owned my behavior before the judge.

I owned my behavior before the American people.

- You pleaded guilty.

- I pleaded guilty.

I did not waste the jury's time, waste the judge's time, or waste the prosecutor's time, and there's a lot to be said for me personally about owning my own behavior.

This is what I knew to be the truth, that growing up Jesse Jackson Jr. comes with $0.

It's a big name.

- [Hermene] No money.

- But it doesn't come with any money.

Not then, not now, and so I woke up in 1995 having to get a second home.

Not only the home in my district, but the home in Washington, D.C. - In Washington.

- I had a wife at the time.

I didn't have children yet.

The children came, and so I lived in my campaign, and in my mind, I rationalized that being in Washington for me as a Congressman was a business expense, and I justified it over and over and over again in my mind, to the tune of, in addition to my salary, $75,000 a year from my campaign.

My offense, over a 10-year period, hence, $750,000.

The way the stories have been written here in Chicago, it's as if I took $750,000 and ran from my campaign with it.

That's just not true.

On this occasion- - It was your money in the first place.

- Was not my money.

It's the campaign's money.

- [Hermene] Campaign's money.

- And it was not public money.

- But it was the Jesse Jackson Jr. campaign money.

- Correct.

- Congressional money.

- Money that I raised to be in Congress, and, hence, I saw it as a business expense, and so I paid complete restitution for that, had to take out a mortgage on our home, which, even on this date, is in foreclosure as a result.

We simply can't meet all the obligations.

- The home in Washington.

- That's correct, and in the divorce, it was supposed to be sold and settled to pay off other debts.

That's what the divorce decree called for, but that's not what has actually happened, and so, as a result, we'll lose that home.

We'll still be straddled with debt, and to that extent, the offense just keeps piling up, but the lesson that I learned in prison was that I found something in the stories, not only that I had to share, but in the stories that other men in prison shared with me, and I had been helping them fill out pardon applications, and when I was thrown in solitary confinement for teaching them that, I learned and discovered something in the Constitution of the United States that is at the soul of America, that is at the heart of America, that is at the heart of the thinking of the architects of our Republic, and I never would've found it, Hermene, had I not been in prison, and for that, I became grateful.

- Now, that led to the book "The Finger of God."

- Now, that led to the book "The Finger of God."

- [Jesse] That's correct.

- Where you associate the Founding Fathers and link them to the Bible.

You and Frank Watkins wrote a beautiful book.

Tell me a little bit about that.

- So the book that Frank Watkins and I wrote was the history of African Americans from 1619 to the present at that time, 2001.

We completed it before his death in 2019, the update of that book, but the discovery that I made in Congress was that America, at its inception, has within it a theological experiment, a theological experiment that the Founding Fathers themselves called the finger of God.

- That's George Washington, Benjamin Franklin.

- That's Thomas Jefferson.

That's Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and James Madison.

- [Hermene] Okay.

- And they placed language in the Constitution, in the highest form of religion that they understood, that religion is not congregationalism.

It's not denominationalism.

It's called the sect of one.

It's Hermene Hartman's personal relationship with God.

It's Jesse Jackson Jr.'s personal relationship with God.

It's Jesus of Nazareth at the hour of His birth and at the hour of His crucifixion, His personal relationship with God, and they extracted from scripture something called the function of the lineage of David, 28 generations from David to Jesus.

They placed it in the Constitution for an American in the future to discover and distribute to discover and distribute to the American people.

Always in the future, always thinking about the future.

Always thinking about a future that they would not live to see.

And it is in that that I developed a broader and a greater appreciation for the American experiment, and more specifically, the contribution of African Americans to the destiny of this nation.

You want to run for politics again?

I'm not so sure.

Nothing financially has changed for me since my offense.

I'm in a worse financial position than I was before I ran in 1995.

If I ever ran for office, I would certainly do things fundamentally different.

But increasingly, since I've held office, it has become a a game that is out of reach for just average, ordinary people.

It's impossible to live in two cities, fresh out of college.

It's impossible.

Under the present finance rules of how to run for office, to compete with outside money and corporate money and that's just not who I am.

And so if I ever ran a campaign, it would be directly to the people.

Without the idea that money would influence my thinking.

You're seeking a pardon now?

Initially, I sought not to seek a pardon.

I came out of prison, and.

And I said that I'd like President Barack Obama to consider millions of men and women, 79 million of them.

Today.

68 million at the hour that I was released from prison, who paid their debt to society?

They owe America nothing else.

Grant them the forgiveness that the Constitution of the United States required on September 17th, 1787, as an integral part of the life, liberty, and happiness system.

Use the president, the presidential power to pardon the function of the lineage of David.

Placed Sacredly in the Constitution of the United States to restore the lives of men and women who have aired.

I did not say let anyone out of prison.

I believe people should do their time.

But once they are released from prison, you must remove from them felonies.

I even thought about it theologically.

One step further.

And when we think about Jesus turning to the crowd and asking them not to cast stones at the woman.

It isn't just about the transformation and the reformation of the woman who may have sinned.

The real question before us is, how do we stop people from throwing stones?

But then radio showed the other day.

Even on the cross, do you forgive them?

For they know.

Not what they know, not what they do?

That's correct.

So when I did a radio show the other day, a man called in and said that he had received tickets to the white House with his daughter.

He was taking her on a tour of the white House.

He had waited in line for a couple of hours.

When he got to the checkpoint.

They asked him to step aside and have a seat.

They said that they could not let him in the white House.

He asked why he's gotten tickets from his congressman to take a tour of the white House with his daughter.

And the Secret Service shared with him that he had committed an offense 40 years ago and was not allowed in the white House.

What does a pardon mean?

So you've given us a great example, which sounds absolutely ridiculous.

But what does it mean for you to get a part?

Is something like that?

Does that just vanish?

Does that go away?

Is that impossible to happen?

On September 17th, 1787, every American understood.

Pardon me.

Pardon me for what I've done.

And they placed the language of that decency in the Constitution, and they called it a pardon.

They extracted it from Matthew, chapter one, verse 17.

The commander of the army.

That would be David.

And Jesus of Nazareth.

The reprieve were, pardner, David and Jesus.

And they put it in article two, section two, clause one of the Constitution by function, allowing the American people every four years to vote for someone who would function in the lineage of David for them, should they ever I don't see a pardon as something personal to me.

I see a president's election as the power to elect the grace, someone who will distribute the grace of God to the American people should they err, and when they placed it in the Constitution, it was before the Bill of Rights, giving the President of the United States to reach into a state and forgive a woman who steals a loaf of bread because she was trying to feed her family.

At least one person in the entire society has to be able to reach into that state, reach into these systems, and restore people's lives to life, liberty, and happiness, and that is the core of the Republic.

If I can establish that for the American people in the initial thinking, I'm confident we will turn to each other and not on each other, that we won't be voting for Democrats and Republicans anymore.

The Democratic Party started in 1793, the Republican Party in 1854, but in 1787, they were looking for the person who would restore hope to the people.

It is only when I sought a pardon for myself, at my father's request, that the attention has now turned to me and my request for a pardon, and I turned the attention back on the 77 to 79 million Americans who've paid their debt to society whose names are not Jesse Jackson.

Their names are Larry, and they're trying to take their daughter to the White House.

They are bus drivers.

They are cab drivers.

They're sanitation workers.

They're people who are trying to restore their lives, so many men and women in our system who've been left on the sidelines because no one has stopped long enough to give them the forgiveness that they deserve.

- So you're doing radio now.

You've done a couple of radio shows, different time slots on WVON, the voice of the nation.

You like it?

- I love it.

- You love it.

- I love it.

I really want to help Melody Spann and Pierre Cooper build out that infrastructure so that we can leave a legacy for communicating with African Americans in Chicago, but, quite frankly, around the country, if the infrastructure is built properly.

- And now with the internet and Facebook, absolutely it is around the country.

- I mean, I see the destiny in my work and in my efforts as extending to N'Digo and "N'Digo Studio," as extending to the crusader and extending to the defender because we need digital means by which we communicate with our communities, separate and independent from the traditional outlets that allow people to discern what they think our intentions are and what our voices are as a community.

It must be a trusted source.

- So where are we today in American politics?

We go Dr. King to today.

to today.

We've seen changes.

We've seen social change.

We've marched.

We've seen the progress today.

Right now.

Where are we?

Where is American politics?

Doctor King said that before the Mayflower we were here.

Malcolm X said that we didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.

So we were here in 1619, before the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

We were here before the writing of the Constitution in 1787, which referred to us as 3/5 of a person, beginning a journey to citizenship rights.

We were here before the Bill of Rights, before the First Amendment, before the press, before the churches.

We were here before the Second Amendment, before the guns.

We were here before the 10th Amendment.

We were here when states were added to the Union, one free and one slave, and the various compromises that led to the Civil War, 1861 to 1865, when the entire union fell apart because 13 states didn't believe in our freedom.

The Negro was here.

We watched Tilden and Hayes in 1877 and then Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896.

We watched Jim Crow come into existence between first Reconstruction and second Reconstruction that led to Brown versus the Board of Education, and all we've ever known is second Reconstruction.

we are going to initiate, with lack of information, a new Jim Crow, a second Jim Crow, something more devastating than we've ever seen.

We're seeing it in Springfield, Ohio, with the rhetoric.

We're seeing it with the language that's coming from Donald Trump about women.

We're seeing it with the Dobbs decision, which isn't just about white women and their choices.

It's about all women and their choices.

We're seeing it at the border.

We're seeing it in the vitriol towards Africa and towards people of color emanating from the United States.

That's what I see, and I can't see past November 5th, to articulate to people that this history matters.

What's at.

Stake?

What's at.

Stake?

The reality of it.

The reality of it all.

We want to teach.

We want to be in academia.

I'd love to teach.

You'd love to teach.

You'd be a fabulous teacher.

Thank you.

For me.

You know what makes me just.

You and I've talked about this.

You did.

And I've talked about this.

I turn on television and we get the experts talking about analyzing what they really.

Some of them absolutely do not understand.

And everybody is cutesy and has a wonderful title.

And I doubt if they've ever worked a campaign.

I doubt if they've read the book.

I doubt if they have had conversations.

It's important that we talk, but it's important who talks so that the voice that we get is pure?

I mean, it wasn't my offense, the shame, the blame and the guilt, the resentments and the regrets that I felt as a result of what happened to me personally.

It was that I knew that so much of our history had been entrusted to me, and that it was very, very important that I hold the line.

I had been asked to leave Congress two years after I entered Congress.

CBS in Chicago tried to hire me.

Julian Bond personally interviewed me to leave Congress and become the next president of the NAACP.

That was a confidential negotiation, and I decided not to.

I thought it was important that my voice stay in Congress and Black, the African American, the Black Caucus called me the historian of Congress, certainly from our perspective, and when I felt that that voice was lost, it didn't matter if we went from 30 Black congressmen to 60 Black congressmen.

If they did not understand where they stood in history, we could be lost.

That pained me more than the offense itself.

What I did not anticipate was that being Jesse Jackson Jr, the pardon process, unlike many people who are hidden in our society, is really a request for forgiveness from all of the American people.

It's not just will Biden pardon you?

I have to ask the permission of all of the American people, and it is impractical to ask 330 million people one at a time.

And if I have to go through it, then everyone who has paid their debt to society has to ask the forgiveness of the American people in the most appropriate way.

And the president?

Him or herself, is simply a distributor, a distributor of that grace.

You've got more work to do.

You've got a lot of work to do.

Thank you.

It might be different work, but it's the work to do.

And you know that you've lived that.

You are that and you'll do it.

Thank you for being with us today.

For kind of a personal conversation.

This is your main art, man with Indigo.

Indigo studio.

Thank you for watching.

For more information about this show, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Blue Sky.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Chicago Community Trust.

Sin City Studios, Lamborghini Chicago, Gold Coast, and Downers Grove.

Blue cross, Blue shield of Illinois, Commonwealth Edison and the Illinois Health Plan.

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