Jackson seeking his place in civil rights movement

Jackson says he talks often with Obama, but Obama has never campaigned alongside him.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

CHICAGO — For most of Jesse Jackson’s life, his trademark declaration — “I am somebody!” — has been self-evident.

But not so much anymore. The rise of Barack Obama and a surge of young leaders in the civil rights movement are raising questions about how big a somebody Jackson really is these days.

It is a perplexing transition not just for Jackson but for the civil rights movement too. For both, the challenge will be to remain central to politics in this country even as Obama’s nomination for president prompts many Americans to believe the major goals of the civil rights movement have been achieved.

Jackson will have none of such talk.

“It will be a stunning achievement for America,” Jackson said about Obama’s impending nomination. “But the work of civil rights, broadly, the whole fight for the rights of the individual, will continue.”

Obama’s nomination will cap a period of striking change in leadership of the African-American community. And Jackson must adjust to the change in order to remain relevant in the age of Obama.

In politics, where Jackson once was without peer as a black on the national stage, Obama has eclipsed him. The generation he represents has achieved success everywhere from Capitol Hill to city halls to state capitals across the country. In civil rights, Rev. Al Sharpton leads a new wing of the movement that is flanked by radio voices and bloggers who have shown an ability to mobilize mass protests.

“The largest challenge facing Jesse is, in a day when you have a Barack in government and there are players like Sharpton in civil rights, are you still relevant?” Sharpton asked.

“Part of his relevance is that some of the new players out there, people like me, he helped mentor. The question now is, does he play the elder statesman in terms of living through them?”

How Jackson handles not just the presidential campaign but a prospective Obama presidency, too, will do much to define his legacy. It also will say much about what new course the civil rights movement must set.

A humiliating public stumble jolted Jackson into this delicate adjustment period. When a Fox News microphone in early July picked up Jackson’s use of a vulgar expression to criticize Obama, the episode seemed to symbolize Jackson’s frustration at feeling left on the sidelines by Obama’s historic ascendancy.

Jackson makes a point of saying he speaks frequently with Obama by telephone. However, Obama has never campaigned alongside Jackson in the 18 months since he declared his candidacy in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield.

But then, Jackson can be tough to pin down.

Evoking the nickname “Jetstream Jesse” that former Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko pinned on him decades ago, Jackson still spends more than 200 days a year on the road. In recent months he has visited India and Haiti, and he is trying to arrange a trip to the Darfur region of Sudan.

Just last week, Jackson spoke at a United Nations conference on children’s issues, visited a rally of black labor organizers in Jacksonville, Fla., returned to host his regular Saturday morning television program and PUSH rally, spoke at comedian Bernie Mac’s memorial service Saturday afternoon, saw his son Yusef marry Saturday night, then dropped down to Memphis to eulogize musician Isaac Hayes.

Sharpton spoke at Hayes’ service, too.

But it was two weeks ago, when Sharpton dropped in at Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH headquarters on Chicago’s South Side just before the Bud Billiken back-to-school parade, that the two met face to face for the first time since Sharpton criticized Jackson for his “hot mic” remarks.

Standing behind the desk in his cluttered office, with a photo of himself with King on one wall and two display-sized candids of him with Bill Clinton on the other, Jackson led Sharpton and a band of supporters in prayer.

Jackson’s sometimes prickly relationship with Sharpton is emblematic of his changing role in the civil rights movement. Not yet an elder statesman, but no longer the first to hit the streets, Jackson at times seems lost in transition.

The day after visiting Jackson’s office, Sharpton spoke forcefully from the pulpit of New Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in support of a plan to boycott the first day of Chicago Public School in protest against funding inequities. The boycott is the brainchild of Rev. James Meeks, a former Jackson protege and state senator who straddles the worlds of politics and church-based activism just as Jackson once did.

Jackson has mostly steered clear of the boycott, an issue that has divided Chicago’s black community, with some arguing that the stay-out-of-school message is confusing and unwise.

“I agree with the cause,” Jackson said in an interview, “but I wonder about the tactic.” Jackson does support a lawsuit filed Wednesday claiming the Illinois funding plan is unconstitutional.

Jackson was a late mover, too, in one of the biggest civil rights fights of recent years: The demonstrations against harsh punishment doled out to six black students from Jena, La., now known as “The Jena 6.” The youth were jailed and charged with attempted murder for beating a white student in the rural Louisiana hamlet. Three months earlier, white students who had hung three nooses from a schoolyard tree were merely suspended from school.

The Jena 6 case went mostly unnoticed until The Chicago Tribune reported it as a national story and bloggers and black talk-radio hosts started buzzing about it. Sharpton caught on and ultimately alerted Jackson, who helped lead 20,000 people in a march for justice in Jena last September. But Sharpton and Jackson appeared late to the cause already taken up by a younger generation of civil rights advocates in the blogosphere.

Jackson and the Obama campaign went through an uneasy minuet during the last two weeks over the issue of whether Jackson would appear at the Democratic National Convention at all. Ultimately Jackson sought clearance from Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett before deciding to appear in Denver.

Jackson had expected to speak at a Democratic National Committee prayer breakfast next Thursday that will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington. Jackson was at that march, near the speaker’s stand, to hear King make his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. However, Jackson said Thursday the DNC has decided to focus attention on the role of the King family and Jackson will not speak. Sharpton is scheduled to address the breakfast.