Jesse Jackson: “The Struggle Continues”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In the 1984 presidential election, Jesse Jackson launched a campaign that many political observers thought of as quixotic. However, he won more votes in the primaries than anyone expected, emboldening him to run again in 1988. In March of that year, after a series of primary wins and strong second-place finishes, he was regarded as the front-runner for the Democratic Party's nomination. Eventually Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis was the party's nominee, but Jackson had shown his ability to register new voters—not just African Americans but also progressive whites who shared his vision—and to win votes in a crowded Democratic field. By the end of the primary season Jackson had garnered some 6.9 million primary votes. He won seven primaries (Alabama, District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, and Virginia), five state caucuses (Alaska, Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina, and Vermont), and the state party conventions in Texas (although he did not win the Texas primary). He particularly astounded skeptics by winning 55 percent of the vote in Michigan. He arrived at the Democratic National Convention in second place, with more than twelve hundred pledged delegates. Jackson's supporters believed that because of his strong showing, Dukakis would select him as his running mate. Instead, Dukakis picked Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. The breadth of Jackson's support, however, left him in the position of a power broker who could deliver votes. The Dukakis camp made numerous concessions to Jackson, including at least nine changes in the party's platform proposed by Jackson.

In this excerpt from his speech to his delegates on July 22, at the close of the 1988 convention, Jackson inspires them to sustain the struggle for influence and impact in the Democratic Party. In the first paragraph, he attacks the administration of the current president, Ronald Reagan, for its foreign policies and notes that Reagan never met with the Congressional Black Caucus. He makes reference to Reagan's state campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, Mississippi, noteworthy for an infamous event in 1964 when three young civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, were murdered by authorities. Their bodies were later found near the town of Philadelphia. Jackson also expresses his concern with South Africa and its apartheid policies, which, he argues, Reagan was doing nothing to oppose. In this regard, Jackson was inaccurate. Reagan repeatedly said that he found apartheid repugnant, but he believed that the United States could not force South Africa to change its policies; rather, his administration worked to put quiet, steady pressure on the South African regime to do so.

Jackson goes on to point out the extraordinarily narrow margin by which John Kennedy had won the 1960 presidential election, a win that expressed for African Americans the “margin of our hope.” In contrast, the Republican Richard Nixon's more comfortable victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1968 reflected the “margin of our despair.” Jackson then argues that, in contrast to 1968, in 1988 African Americans and Jackson supporters in general have more “strength” and ability to “knock down doors in the DNC.” He indicates that his supporters are “still knocking on doors,” producing change in the attitudes of the party leadership, including the party chairman Paul Kirk.

Jackson uses the image of “street heat” in referring to civil rights successes. He notes, for example, that while John Kennedy supported civil rights in the South (a conclusion that some historians have cast some doubt on, for Kennedy did not want to alienate the Democratic South), it was “children in Birmingham” who “wrote” civil rights with their deaths. Jackson here is referring to yet another infamous incident, when the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls. He also argues that while President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it was the people of Selma, Alabama, who got the legislation passed. Jackson is talking about the Selma-to-Montgomery (Alabama) civil rights marches in 1965 and particularly to “Bloody Sunday,” or March 7, when state and local authorities attacked the marchers with clubs and tear gas. Jackson urges his followers to keep up the “street heat,” in part by registering new voters. He makes reference to the “contra vote,” congressional investigations into the complicated Iran-Contra “arms for hostages” scandal that plagued the last months of the Reagan administration, and to efforts to gain statehood for the District of Columbia led by Mayor Marion Barry and Walter Fauntroy, a civil rights activist who served as a nonvoting representative for the district in Congress.

Jackson indicates his excitement about movements in the Democratic Party that affect African Americans. He refers to the “Dellums Bill,” introduced in Congress by Ron Dellums to impose sanctions on South Africa. He also refers to the “Conyers Bill,” introduced by Representative John Conyers to secure federal voting rights. More important than these pieces of legislation, though, is a new unity based on newfound support from those who did not support Jackson in his 1984 presidential bid. He urges, then, more grassroots politics, exhorting his supporters to keep an eye on what their congressional representatives are doing and to vie for leadership positions in their state party organizations. Jackson asserts that “we were humiliated on Wednesday night because we won the popular vote but the superdelegates imposed their will on us.” (Superdelegates are party leaders who have votes at the convention but are not elected in the primary process.) In response to Jackson's influence, Dukakis and other party leaders pledged to revise the process of selecting superdelegates in a way that would work in Jackson's favor should he choose to run again in the future. Although Jackson states that “we won the popular vote,” it is unclear what he means. Although he won nearly seven million primary votes, Dukakis garnered nearly ten million.