Hi, my name is Hermene Hartman with Indigo Studio.

Today we talk to David Massey Ultra.

He's a writer and author.

His latest book, I Am Somebody Why Reverend Jesse Jackson Matters.

He's a political columnist with Salon and he also writes for Atlantic magazine.

Teaches literature and writing at Indiana University.

He takes a deep dive on Reverend Jackson's contributions to America.

And he writes that Jackson is one of the most important civil rights figures in the 20th century, with bookends of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And President Barack Obama.

He puts Jackson in a historical perspective.

We're going to talk to him about the book and Jackson's career.

And then we're going to talk to the legend himself.

Cozy conversations Drop the knowledge That's for real Funding for this program Was provided by: Community Trust, The Field Foundation, Common Wealth Eddison, Blue Cross Blue Shield And the Illinois State Lottery.

David, welcome to Indigo Studio.

Oh, thank you for having me.

You've written a beautiful book.

Wonderful book and a definitive book.

Why did you write this book and tell us, how long did it take you to write it?

Well, I had the pleasure and the privilege of first meeting Reverend Jesse Jackson six years ago to interview him on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his first historic and groundbreaking presidential campaign.

And it was a true blessing of my life that he and I developed a rapport.

So that first interview led to many more interviews, and I was able to accompany him on some of his travels.

And I realized that one article or even a series of articles was insufficient to capture this momentous life and to capture the profound implications of this life.

Because, as I argue in the book, Reverend Jackson is the most effective and consequential living civil rights leader.

So through a study of his life, his accomplishments, his struggles, his battles, we not only learn about, as the subtitle suggest, why Jesse Jackson matters, but we also learn about what it is that Reverend Jackson fought.

So you say you write the Reverend Jackson's one of the most important civil rights figures in the 20th century.

Elaborate on that.

Well, as many of your viewers might know, he was an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King and he worked to universalize the franchise.

He also worked to bring in sport, the movement from the south to the northern United States and to urbanize the movement.

So to take it out of the pastoral precincts and into the major northern cities.

And he did so with what Middlebury University calls the most important but least known civil rights story in American history, and that's Operation Breadbasket and the early years of Operation Push, which led to the employment of thousands of black workers, the admission of thousands of workers into trade unions and the procurement of millions of dollars in profit for black business owners who were otherwise excluded.

And then in the eighties, you get to his presidential campaigns, which really laid the foundation for the diversification of the Democratic Party and the transformation of the Democratic Party into a progressive movement.

So he really laid the groundwork with the presidential runs, 84, 88.

A lot of people say he made the path for President Obama, but he really made the path for Clinton.

President Obama and Hillary Clinton's run.

Obama and Hillary Clinton's run.

He changed the Democratic Party.

Talk about that, what that change looks like.

Well, there is no way to comprehend the modern Democratic Party without understanding and appreciating Reverend Jackson's campaign and influence.

So in 84, he strongly advocated for a more prominent role for women in the party, which led to Geraldine Ferraro on the ticket.

And then much later, as you say, Hillary Clinton and now Kamala Harris.

He acted as a docent, as a valet, bringing blacks and Latinos and Native Americans and gays.

He was the first candidate to support gay rights.

Farmers, Appalachian.

Farmers and progressive whites connected to activist networks into the party.

And it's also important to add that he changed the rules of the Democratic Party in terms of delegate allocation, without which Barack Obama would have never won the nomination.

Winner takes all 2008.

Yes.

So one of the things that Reverend Jackson did when he was running that is too often overlooked is during the debates and Biden was on the debate stage and they talked about European policies.

They talked about NAITO.

They talked about China.

And Reverend Jackson said, but what about nelson mandela in South Africa?

And that was really the beginning of the release of nelson mandela from jail.

You talk about that in the book.

Oh, yes.

Well, a great deal of the book is devoted to a study of Reverend Jackson's international work because he's an international dissident, an international figure and fighter for peace.

And he was the first major American figure to support Nelson Mandela and call for the demolition of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

He was also the first to call for a two state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a position that now is mainstream.

And then, of course, we know that outside.

But it wasn't then.

No.

Just like many of his domestic policy positions, universal health care, tuition free, higher ed, he was 30 years ahead of the Democratic Party.

So, David, as you have studied, been with and seen Reverend Jackson in action, how would you describe his leadership style?

Leadership style is first of all, it's pastoral in that he is a reverend and he attempts to locate the goodness in people.

He attempts to locate common ground.

Speaking about those presidential campaigns, one, some of the language that came out of those campaigns was let's leave the racial battleground, find economic common ground, and then reach for moral higher ground.

That's the essential struggle of American history that one can read in the texts of Howard Zinn.

The analysis of W.E.B.

Dubois or find through the leadership of figures as diverse as Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King.

But what people often miss is even at the age of 79, his dedication.

So he still spends every Christmas morning speaking with inmates at Cook County Jail.

Going to the jail?

Yes.

Yes, in the jail.

So that's what many people miss is the dedication and the commitment.

And it's serving people directly, while also telegraphing an alternative to American policy, which is far too often corporate and unequal in its orientation.

And he still marches.

Still marches.

Still still on the battlefield.

So are you familiar with Isabel Wilkerson's book, Caste?

Yes.

So one of the.

In her first book.

The first book.

Okay.

So one of the things that I've concluded from her wonderful analysis on racism and casteism in America is that Dr. King confronted America constitutionally.

Reverend Jackson confronts America's caste system.

Would you agree with that?

Yes, That's a really salient and thought provoking point.

The last big effort of Dr. King's life before it was tragically and unjustly snuffed out by a murderer was a Poor People's Campaign.

So Reverend Jackson and I, he told me about how Dr. King gathered for his last birthday.

Native American leaders, Jewish leaders, Latino leaders and white leaders from Appalachia to find ways to advocate against the cruel and disproportionate distribution of wealth that consigned so many people to lives of precarity in our country.

And after Dr. King's tragic assassination, Reverend Jackson, I would argue more than anyone else, picked up that baton and advanced it into the corporate boardroom, into the governor's mansion, into the mayor's mansion, into the halls of Congress and into the White House.

One of the other things you point out in the book that a lot of people don't know when Reverend Jackson ran for president, he didn't want to run for president.

Here he was making the case that we could win black people, we could win the presidency.

We can change the democracy.

But he really went to Maynard Jackson first and then to Andrew Young second.

And then after, no takers.

It was like, well.

And also at the time, Reverend Jackson was leading what is remains to this day the most successful voter registration drive in American history.

And everywhere on those stops, the people were chanting, Run, Jesse, run.

So it was a true populist campaign in that it was responsive to the people's needs, desires and hopes rather than what we too often have in our politics.

The top down model of leadership where the leader attempts to impose an agenda on the people.

He's registered more people than any other single person ever in the history of the country.

I know the number that's in the millions.

6 million.

Okay, That's the number.

And now we're going to talk to the legend himself, Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Reverend, thank you for being with us today.

Reverend, describe your leadership style in your words.

What was the Jesse Jackson leadership style?

Well, the situation was situational leadership.

Leadership must mold opinion that while opinion polls speak to the of the situation as across the years.

Well, I first went to jail in the NAACP Youth Council, the employment court.

And in North Carolina, then I'm another king I've been functioning 24 years, really.

second best friend.

Mega si fi fraternity I had a kind of leadership style and my situation.

So let me ask you this.

When you ran for president and you changed the Democratic Party, was your foresight really what it did, or was it the moment?

Well, the moment see, we were picketing a once a loud radio show when someone called, said, Reverend Jackson, we should bring up James Brown's coronation.

When you manage to stay in the Chicago office and I will see you on that.

All these actors there and free popcorn being all that she had the parade neighbor, the principal, you know, she boycott Chicago office.

My my first my hand was at Chicago first these audience and free my movements, Bruce.

It was right.

It can be wrong.

So we had a meeting in Rome, of course, with Leon for an end to him.

And a bunch of us met Joe Gardner and we decided to work on Chicago Office of that, Lou Palmer was making the case, Harold Washington to run for mayor and Joe was a problem.

How it came about one day.

Well, guys, a lot coming, coming.

I'm on.

I'm on the run.

And we kept pressing the house the world to what you guys were really $200,000 and 50,000 rubles.

I'll run until the run.

We put fix hundred thousand New voters with the help of it.

Ed Gardner and Ronald Robison.

these people who had not known made it happen.

And I was not forget that.

We thought we could win.

Jane Burn did it go out and we say we couldn't afford the commercials and Brian and Dana said, well, believe what Jane Burn says about Daily, And believe what Daily say About Jane Burn.

Take that.

Take the money.

But Vote for Harlod Vote for Harold.

And so it seems to me at some point we thought, well, we're in the tender and Monday will come in Chicago to defeat Harold The primer the Democrat premier and the chairman, Mondale was coming for Daily.

and so some I said this is the bankruptcy of liberalism so much and wrong challenge this.

Bankrupt of liberalism.

Yeah.

Because in liberalism we support you but you don't support us, That's bankrupt.

So I asked Maynard Jackson Vote for my house as the good idea but I'm just leaving parties.

I make some money with my family.

I can't.

But you should do it.

No, no, no.

I was organizing with me and the in house and that you should do.

And it will.

It will work is impractical.

We will resume back and forth.

Then we stop again, take polls.

And we finally decided I was down South On the voters registration Campaign.

You were apart of that, Run Jesse Run came out that situation.

So it seems to me that some I had the run and I had no preparation to run.

And I remember President Barack and one day at the downtown Sports club, he said I was an independent, Mondale at heart at Columbia University as a myself.

Self this can happen?

Fact he said it could happen.

We were sowing and seeds.

oh, I was trying to be a trailblazer.

He became a pathfinder Once We knock the trees down We began to make things happen.

I'm excited about his candidacy because he wanted to be He fulfill So many Of our dreams.

So something you've often said the timing was so perfect.

It was an eloquent timing.

You said.

Well, we I our cup ran Over with frustration.

for frustration and abuse and misuse.

And so we ran.

That was awareness among the people, but not among the officials at this that the didn't support us In 84 we won those districts they were all on board and took it to another level.

What struck me 84 we got like 450 delegates and like that.

And with $19 million budget, I sat in people's homes, in the projects, among gangs and in reservations and on the farms.

People's Campaign.

Obama People's Campaign, and exciting people who want to make a dash for freedom.

I want to thank the leadership because what I Further more I was, if you didn't support me in 84 Not because you were mean Harold was The biggest politician in America...Harold I couldn't risk all this around a long shot campaign.

So part of the style that was not to make enemies, but to keep building friends.

So, David, here's a question for you.

In the book you write about the Jesse Jackson factor.

I got two corporate questions for you.

What is the Jesse Jackson factor?

How do you describe.

That's an interesting term because it began as a term of disparagement from a right wing political operator.

And she said that the Democratic Party must learn how to deal with the Jesse Jackson factor.

But I said that it was unintentionally illuminating because the way that I define and describe the Jesse Jackson factor is a political calculus that places ethics above expediency, places the poor, above the rich, and places justice over profit.

And that often gets candidates in trouble because we have a system that doesn't reward truth tellers because we have a system that's based around corporate donations.

So when that right wing political operator said the Democratic Party must deal with the Jesse Jackson factor, she meant it in a disparaging way.

But the way that I would say it is the Jesse Jackson factor is that which about which uses democracy to serve the people.

She meant it in terms of a control mechanism.

Yes.

And we Jesse means it as a change mechanism.

David, another thing in your book that you say is the worst nightmare for corporate exec is to get a call from Reverend Jackson.

How so?

Well, from the late sixties to the present, Reverend Jackson's acted as this roving bodyguard for the interests of black workers and consumers, but workers and consumers more broadly.

So there's so many stories in the book, from local businesses to multinational corporations like Toyota, that if they are engaging in racial discrimination, if they're down on workers rights, if they're down on consumer protection, they would eventually get a call from Reverend Jackson and he would set things straight.

So it it's work that humanized our economic structure while simultaneously working with the political system to change the laws.

So those types of abuses aren't even possible.

Economists who change corporate for to really be inclusive for inclusion.

And then the other is the political.

And then I guess in the middle we would talk about social justice would happen.

We would go in for a given kind of bash.

on these six white board member, 36 women, three blacks, one Latino, there's Apple and all these happening, all these companies didn't make laws.

So they said, you can't come in.

We bought shares in stock like 10000 hours stop you the shareholders mean they can't say no at all.

The president.

Called.

The shareholder meeting and then setting which raises concerns why then the blacks on the board are women on the board?

Well, the C-suite now, the black on the board of of Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon is about 30 plus on board would have to live that because none of them were not black.

We got the training programs so we we use our leverage and our persona to force the press to deal with the hypocrisy of certain companies and images on the advertisment.

That's a behind the scenes.

So here's the question.

This is a general question to today.

What is the difference between civil rights movement, let's say the King era to Black Lives Matter today?

Well, one thing that I learned from spending time with Reverend Jackson is people confuse the civil rights movement as an artifact in a museum when really it's a living, breathing, evolving part of the American story.

Fluid.

Yes.

Yes.

So now we're just in a different stage of it.

And Reverend Jackson talks about that very well.

I remember reading a book some time ago and I saw some pictures, iconic pictures of Susan Howard Pickets saying stop lynching.

That was Black Lives Matter There day.

Siting in.. See Black Lives matter say if Travon Martin is killed and the killer walks free.

9 people killed in Charleston and they think that They take the guy by to get A hamburger on the way to jail.

Michael Brown Killed and lay in the streets, No Black Lives Matter Killing us without consequence.

And then George Floyd, kill without consequence, without family.

What I find to be fascinating is, this movement has touched some deep in the core of white Americans.

Character George Floyd die in real time.

Could have never been in that challenge.

Our business sense of humanity maybe be more white, sponsored than blacks an it manifested itself political.

I mean, it's not just a march.

These marches to turn into Political sophistication.

that the king spoke in Washington in 63 Only one Black official in the whole south Only one!

Now, he never saw a black mayor of Atlanta or goes to Savannah.

Or Dallas of Houston, a Washington, D.C., the Chicago, Chicago.

So the vote the vote Is the camera.

The cameras exposed Ugjyness The vote is the power.

If George Floyd would of had to tells on story The police would lie Lying eyes you know.

You know, the cameras has been a big factor in exposing ugliness in this and the vote.

Reverend, you've got a you got a new book, Keeping Hope Alive, which is a compilation of your sermons and speeches.

The 84 88 speech That's been so wide Harolded is in that book, Amazon.com.

You can get book and.

Bookstores.

And bookstores and they vote.

I'm excited, but I realize there is one guy.

He is.

And he's written a wonderful book.

Reverend, I need to tell you something.

So for 20, 20, LPN and LC Higginbottom and I will be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, it went to an organization.

Seldom does it go to an organization, but it was a World Food Organization that had done some significant work.

But we're going to keep on nominating until we're going to keep hope alive.

We're going to keep the nomination alive.

You deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and we're going to get it.

On your point on the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the fascinating aspects of I am somebody why Jesse Jackson matters is there are so many stories that aren't told.

So, for example, I'll let the readers get the full story.

But Reverend Jesse Jackson transformed the situation for religious people in Cuba.

The moves that Jackson made with Castro in the eighties opened up the possibility of religious freedom in that country.

That's a story we're never told.

But one story among many that would validate your righteous campaign for Reverend Jackson to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Cuba experience.

Yes.

Yes.

And the Mandela.

Of course.

One that Castro that he said, I want you to go to the university and ask for 5000 of us as a church with me.

Rubin Jeremiah Wright was there and other ministers were there on the tour of Cuba.

When Castro walked up those steps.

The ministers saw him.

They almost tripped out.

You had to tell them to leave his cigar.

As they say, as a mountain man.

But what happened was I was I said, why don't you go to church?

I said, Well, I grew up in the church.

I want to be a priest.

We won the mountains.

We got to sit.

I thought that we could be welcome at the church.

Priest had guns aimed at us protecting the rich.

Rather the rich and the church and all that stuff.

So with the burning down with, I decided not to burn it down in embrace There theology.

So he or he wrote the book Castro did, just with it.

He let a lot of people Out of jail that day.

Wow!

Reverend, thank you so much for being with us.

David, thank you for being with this wonderful book.

And Reverend, thank you so much for wonderful career and life of transforming our country and making our lives so much.

The work.

Continues.

Including mine.

We got to keep marching.

Right?

Continues.

Thank you.

This is an Indigo studio and we thank you for being with us.

This generation must offer leadership to the real world.

Support human rights.

We believe in that.

Support self-determination.

We are built on that.

Support economic development.

You know, it's right.

Be consistent and gain our moral authority in the world.

I challenge you tonight, my friends.

Let's be bigger and better as a nation and as a party.

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