The Life Work of Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson in 1983. Public Domain.

His life work was mobilizing members of an underclass that was presumed not to exist where the “American Dream” reigned. In his second run at the presidency in 1988, he found them by the millions.

His Rainbow Coalition spanned the whole of society: farmers, white unionists, feminists, Hispanics, students, environmentalists, and a full 95% of black people.

Jackson flatly rejected the notion that Americans had any common cause with the likes of Batista...