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"Keep Hope Alive!"... The Legacy and Meaning of Jesse Jackson (G&R 467)
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- [00:01]
Bob Bozanko
Welcome to Green and Scrappy Politics for Scrappy People, a regular podcast on radical environmental and anti capitalist politics, brought to you by Bob Bozanko and Scott Parkins.
- [00:15]
Reverend Jesse Jackson
That is why I challenge you now to stand together, raise your fists together and engage in our national black litany. Do it with courage and determination. I am somebody. I am somebody. I may be poor, but I am somebody. I may be on welfare, but I am somebody. I may be unskilled, but I am somebody. I am bright, beautiful, proud. I must be respected. I must be protected. What time is it? When we stand together? What time is it? When we say no more yes about what time is it? What time is it? What time is it? Sister Kim Weston, the black national anthem.
- [01:40]
Scott Parkins
This is the Green and Red Podcast. You were just listening to the late Reverend Jesse Jackson giving a speech at Watts Stacks in 1972 in the LA Coliseum. This is a special Green and Red episode to pay tribute to Reverend Jackson. And you know, Jesse Jackson died today. Civil rights giant. He died today at the age of 84. You know, he's, he's very known for his civil rights work. He's very known for being part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He was at the Lorraine Motel when King was shot in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. But we're going to talk, we're going to talk more about Jesse Jackson and get a little bit deeper into his life and some of his work.
- [02:31]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah, I think most people know a little bit about him. Born in South Carolina, went to the University of Illinois to play football, then went back to North Carolina A and T when the civil rights movement was emerging. He wasn't really deeply involved in it. He wasn't in any groups like SNCC early on. But then later he got associated, got affiliated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We'd gone to divinity school. He was a minister. And then headed back to Chicago in the mid-60s where he began to work with the SCLC's Operation Breadbasket, which was programmed to feed poor communities, and then helped create a group called push. People United to Save Humanity was also involved with the mainstream civil rights movement. As you just pointed out, he was in Memphis in 1968. There are pictures of him on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel when King was was assassinated. And after that moved to Chicago and kind of created his own base based on these larger ideas. The media today, in all the obituaries all over, always referred to him as a civil rights leader and talked about black politics. And that's obviously a huge part of it. But I think like King, it was bigger than that. And that's something I think we're talking about. Right. For instance, that clip comes from 1972. Jackson was going around the country talking to, you know, especially African American communities, but others as well, trying to kind of create. And. And in the north as well, that, you know, when he went to the University of Illinois, he said kind of the same thing King said when he went to Chicago, that he saw different intensities of racism there that he'd even seen in the South. Like, you know, he went up to Illinois and a lot of people were calling him the N word and things like that. Right. And so he's going around the country trying to kind of. And, and the speech at Watch Stacks, it was the. The record company, Stacks Records out of Memphis, was putting on his version of kind of a Woodstock.
- [04:22]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [04:23]
Bob Bozanko
And he opened that and he was going around the country doing a lot of that. And it was a message of kind of hope and uplift. You know, I am somebody. There's a great clip, if you get a chance to see it from. He was on Sesame street with the kids. Right. And it's. It's very touching.
- [04:38]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [04:39]
Bob Bozanko
So by the 70s, he was pretty well known as this kind of. Obviously, you know, I don't know if you call him a. I mean, he's a civil rights leader. Yes, you do. But almost like a protest leader, kind of offering an alternative vision. And this is the era, and this is, I think, really what's important for the next, like from 1972 through, like for about 20 years.
- [04:57]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [04:58]
Bob Bozanko
He's offering a different version, an alternative version, as the Democratic Party is abandoning much of what it had stood for prior to that time. 1972 is a really pivotal year. We've talked about that before. And Jackson, I think, emerges from that. He's kind of a minister without portfolio. He held no political office or anything like that. We'll obviously get to when he does run. First time he ever ran for office was as President of the United States. So he's really important, I think from that period, starting around 1970ish, late 60s, early 70s through, you know, especially the next 20 or so years. And, you know, I think, you know, we've talked before, the Democratic Party was clearly moving away from its historical reputation, or let's call it at least its post New Deal reputation. By the. By the late 70s, right. You have Jimmy Carter and neoliberalism, and Carter gets destroyed in 1980. And you have Reagan and In many ways, wouldn't you say? Jackson is kind of a. One of the last, I think, kind of champions of the New Deal order, the actual Lake Roosevelt New Deal.
- [06:04]
Scott Parkins
Definitely think that. I mean, I, like you said Jesse Jackson as a civil rights leader is obviously a big part of it, but I very much affiliate him with this message of economic justice. Same with King, as we have done many times on the show. When you dig in deeper with King, you saw that King was a democratic socialist. And I don't know if anyone's ever said that about Jesse Jackson, but he definitely. The politics around economic justice, with PUSH and with the Rainbow Coalition, it was a message and it was a politic around equality for all. Not just for black people, not just for white people, not for just wealthy white people. I was listening to one sort of obituary show about him today, and there was this. I. I actually think it was a clip that Bernie Sanders was actually, there was a tribute that Sanders paid for him in 2024. It's a picture of him standing on a hay bale in Iowa and like during the 1988 presidential campaign. And he's surrounded by a bunch of white farmers talking about how this economy and culture of like, white farming was being destroyed by Reagan and corporate agriculture and things like that. And that was a lot of like, what I affiliate with Jackson is like this sort of economic justice message. It's a very powerful, very important piece of it. It wasn't just what a lot, when a lot of Democratic politics has devolved into now is like just around identity politics. It's also has a very strong sort of economic message.
- [07:35]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. And I mean, he was active in politics. He campaigned for Jimmy Carter in 1976, 1980, and, you know, saw him and one of the first people, I think, to see where the Democratic Party was headed. You know, they were like, they won in 1976, although, remember, this is only two years after Watergate and Carter barely won, and by 1980, only four years later, he's destroyed. And the Democrats message from all that, really, from 1972, was that, you know, somehow that's what we're hearing today. Right. Somehow they look at themselves and say, we've gone too far to the left. Right. In a lot of ways, this is kind of where, like, you see the real emergence of identity politics too, where instead of dealing with issues like class or poverty or wages or employment or whatever, you see the Democrats break into these various groups and they expect loyalty from these groups. It could be blacks, could be Latinos, could be women. It could be gays or whoever. Right. Transgender people could be anybody. Right. And we still see that today, which is heights. I think it's important. And I think Jackson understood that that wasn't really a good idea. Right. Ironically. Right. He's African American, who kind of is who the Democrats are angling toward. And he's the guy who's saying, wait, it's bigger than this. Right. And that led to him, on his own, to decide to run for president, and he did that. Everyone said it's his ego. I mean, Jesse Jackson has plenty of detractors. No reason to talk about that right now, but a lot of people said it's his ego, he's a narcissist, all that kind of stuff. But I also think he understood where the Democrats were headed, and I think he offered them a lifeline, and, of course, they rejected it. He, in 1983, announced he was running for president. I was actually in grad school at Ohio State, and that day he announced he. I think he was in Flint, Cleveland, and Columbus. So I was in the crowd at Ohio State when he announced he was running for president. It's, like, incredible enthusiasm, and, like, you just felt an energy. It's the only time in my life I've ever been enthused about, like, real politics. It's one of the few times I've ever voted. I won. You know, I. I'm a grad student. I think I gave him 20 bucks, you know, to run, and, you know, I campaigned for him and all that kind of stuff.
- [09:38]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [09:39]
Bob Bozanko
And beginning in 1983, the media didn't take them seriously. They came out with all these smears. A lot of it is based on race. He's anti Semitic.
- [09:47]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [09:48]
Bob Bozanko
He's associated with Louis Farrakhan. And yet. And yet the striking thing about that is he did pretty well, you know?
- [09:56]
Scott Parkins
Yeah. I mean, there was. I mean, he definitely took up the progressive mantle. Like, I mean, the other thing to think about here, too, is that, like, one, the Democrats basically started trying to destroy themselves internally, at least the left punching left. That's what we call it. That's what we call it here. Green red. Podcast. Green red.
- [10:18]
Bob Bozanko
And I would say no one got punched more than Jesse Jackson.
- [10:22]
Scott Parkins
Right, Right. But it really kicks off in 1972, and then. And then in 84, after the Democrats are decimated by Reagan. I mean, I think they lose every state but Minnesota. Correct. And D.C. but, you know, even though Jackson wasn't a candidate, they still, like, punch up on Jesse Jackson and this sort of more progressive Agenda. Washington, who was the black mayor of Chicago, actually also falls into this as well. And that's also when the Democratic Leadership Conference is formed, which becomes the sort of embodiment of that punching left, in my opinion, which runs through 2011. And it's always about how to get the centrist elected to get those with who the corporate sponsors like, elected. And, you know, that's, you know, Jackson is with more with the people. And, you know, that sort of plays out from there. And we can get into the 1988 presidential campaign as well. And maybe we'll save this for a little bit later. But it's also important to note during this period, there's a lot of international solidarity work that's happening, and particularly around apartheid in South Africa. Jackson was like a big part of that as well. He brought that sort of international solidarity element into some of these, into this progressive agenda that he kept continuing to champion through the 80s and 90s.
- [11:40]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah, the DLC, I think, is worth mentioning again, because that's really important. I mean, the groundwork was already there for the DLC. There had been, you know, in 1972, Jimmy Carter and Scoop Jackson at the Democratic Convention actually tried to rally the delegates to not give the nomination to George McGovern. And this is at the convention already. Right. So that had already been out there. That had been out there that, you know, the party has moved too far to the left. And then you have Carter and neoliberalism, the end of regulation. And so you have by. And especially by 1980. Right. With Reagan's victory, you know, the message that comes out of that. I remember people like Bill Clinton and Al Gore and I think Gephardt, maybe Gary Hart, we're all part of the dlc. It's. Clinton is a big part of it, and he's kind of the benefactor of it. But. But it's bigger than that. And the message from the DLC is like, you know, we've. We've done too much to identify with working people and blacks and women, and we need to be nicer to Wall street and corporations and all these. These big businesses. And Jackson's campaign, the success. And that's the important part of all this. It's the success of Jackson's campaign. Right. That forces their hand. Right. They see the writing on the wall that there is still an audience that wants to hear and believes in these programs. We've seen the message in the programs. Right. Because Jackson clearly is talking about race.
- [13:03]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [13:04]
Bob Bozanko
And he's talking about the differences in, you know, Poverty rates among blacks and whites and education and so forth. But he's like you pointed out, I think it's really important. Like he goes to Iowa and does really well in the Iowa caucuses. Like it kind of shocks everybody and the media finds a million ways to excuse it. But the fact is he was the only candidate talking to poor people. It's like King's poor people's campaign. And remember, he was part of that. He understood what that was about. So the media always portrayed him these very stark black and white terms, both real and metaphorical. And Jackson wouldn't do that. He moved beyond that. He stepped out of that. And he was in Ohio, he was talking to steel workers. This is only five years after five, six years after the mills began to shut down. He's going to Pittsburgh, he's going to Gary, he's going to Detroit. And in 1988, that's really going to pay off. But I think the dlc, I'm not going to say it was created because of Jesse Jackson, but I think that pushed it over the finish line. They realize like, we got to have to do something because there's too much of this that's still out there and we have to get rid of it now. Right. The Democratic Party has always put up these bogus ideas about electability. And that was Jackson's, you can't elect a black man president. Right. Why? Because we said so. Why? Because, you know, because you can't. Right. It becomes this tautological argument. Right. And they were, I think, really afraid that in fact Jackson's message was getting through. And you did have white voters, especially industrial areas. And then like in the 88 campaign, he actually won a bunch of southern primaries which had, you know, significant levels of black voters as well. But I think, you know, the DLC and when we look at, look back on the, on the history of this era, I think the creation of the DLC is really important. I mean, you know, there's a lot of people who talk about the origins of the new right in the 70s, right in 60s and 70s, and the best known is probably Rick Pearlstein and personally focuses on things like race and the culture wars, which, which are real. But he doesn't talk about the economy and the structures of poverty and working class people and deindustrialization as much as he talks about things like race and the so called culture wars. Jackson understood that way better. Way better. And I think that terrified the leaders of the Democratic. All the leaders, but especially the Democratic party who didn't want to give up power. There's a famous story, I can't remember where it came from, where, you know, in 1968 when the Democratic convention just literally exploded in Chicago. If you look at pictures of the delegates, there are a bunch of people who look like Richard Daly. Old fat white men in suits. Right. And then in 1972, the Democratic convention, because they had new rules, I believe it was in Miami that year. There's a picture of Jesse Jackson on the floor wearing a dashiki. Right. The Democratic Party had changed and the old guard was furious and they were going to make him pay for it. And I mean, eventually they did. Right. But and I think the dlc, you got to think about that. The Democrats essentially, it was self destructive, could talk all we want, nobody will vote for him. They went too far to the left. They couldn't be elected. But they did it to themselves. They did it to themselves.
- [16:10]
Scott Parkins
It's important to note in 1988, which is just a couple of years after the DLC is formed, Jackson, he got 7 million votes as a presidential candidate, which actually was the other. Some of the other also rans that year were Al Gore and Joe Biden and Richard Gephardt. He got more votes than all of them combined. So I just want to throw that out there.
- [16:29]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. Dukakis. And then who was this? Was it. I forget.
- [16:33]
Scott Parkins
Dukakis won and Jackson came in second.
- [16:36]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. And you know, the biggest kind of buck you to the Democrats was in the Michigan primary. Jackson won the Michigan primary and he won that with the votes of white steelworkers and people who had lost their jobs and kind of disaffected industrial workers. Right. And not just black voters.
- [16:55]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [16:56]
Bob Bozanko
Jackson won in Michigan. That was. And, and remember going back, he called it The Rainbow Coalition 1984. Right. Meaning. And again, it wasn't just a black. It was Rainbow Coalition. You know, this is before we associated with like the gay rights movement. Right. You know, actually who was it? The Black Panthers, I believe Fred Hampton.
- [17:13]
Scott Parkins
Fred Hampton called the Rainbow Conspiracy.
- [17:15]
Bob Bozanko
Right, right, right.
- [17:16]
Scott Parkins
I thought Fred Hampton called the Rainbow Coalition too.
- [17:18]
Bob Bozanko
Was the coalition I saw someone was calling it the Rainbow Conspiracy before that. But the point is, the point is their idea there is that, you know, everybody gets together under this banner of being kind of exploited and working. Let's. It's the poor people's campaign. It's exactly what King was trying to do too. Right. So when the media says civil rights leader, this, that black leader, like, oh, it's way more than that. Which is why they do It I saw years ago, I don't even remember. It was an interview with Jesse Jackson and maybe Skip Gates doesn't matter. And they were talking about American politics and Jackson said, and, and this came up exactly the idea of class and Jackson and, and Skip Gates, I believe, said, you know, something about, like, you, you tend to make an appeal bigger than just race. Right. More than just the black community. And Jackson said, as much as Americans don't like to talk about race, they ignore race. They ignore class even more. That's, that's a paraphrase, but that's kind of what he meant. Right? That is what he meant.
- [18:13]
Scott Parkins
Right, right.
- [18:14]
Bob Bozanko
And, and, and that, I think is what really scared. It's kind of going back to the populace in the 1890s. Right. Or, or, you know, elements of the CIO in the 1930s or, you know.
- [18:25]
Scott Parkins
I mean, I, I think it should also. It's also important to note that this is the era of Reagan. And so it's like an anti union period. It's an anti progressive period. It's an anti civil rights period. It's where Reagan is trying to roll things back. John Roberts, who's the now the chief justice of the Supreme Court, was in the Civil rights division under Reagan trying to figure out how to undo the Voting Rights Act. You know, it's very important. That's also a very reactionary period. And like, Jackson is holding his ground on this, you know, economic justice, progressive agenda, whatever you want to call it.
- [18:58]
Bob Bozanko
I mean, I would say he's the main resistance to Reagan in the 80s. I mean, wasn't tip o', Neal, it wasn't Sam Nutting. You know, I, I, you know, I mean, I would say it was Jesse. Like I said, he's a minister without portfolio in a lot of ways. But yeah, I remember the, in the 80s, what struck me is how many.
- [19:13]
Scott Parkins
People and no big union leaders. Right?
- [19:15]
Bob Bozanko
Well, yeah, well, yeah, many, half of them endorsed Reagan. Right. Like the Teamsters today. Right. I can't tell you how many people, like in Ohio at the time, in this area, like the Youngstown, you know, it's been destroyed, it's been wiped out. Right. How many white guys who either like, were hanging on to the last factory jobs or who had lost their jobs in the factory supported Jesse Jackson. I mean, these are guys I grew up with, guys who, you know, I went to school with, guys in my family who were not the most like, you know, kind of like openly liberated, racially sensitive people.
- [19:45]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [19:46]
Bob Bozanko
And all of them, you know, said he's the only guy who stands up for us. He's the only one I hear talking about us, you know.
- [19:53]
Scott Parkins
Right. Did he win Ohio, do you know?
- [19:54]
Bob Bozanko
In 84, 88, I doubt. No, I'm sure he didn't. But there, I mean, you know, at the time you had a base, and especially in places like Cleveland, you did very well.
- [20:02]
Scott Parkins
Right, right.
- [20:04]
Bob Bozanko
And it was funny because I remember at the time, you know, you did have elected black officials like Harold Washington, you mentioned earlier, and the media just, like, went to such great lengths to dissociate these people from Jesse Jackson. So it was always like, oh, Jesse Jackson's a loud mouth, but what's he ever done? Look at Harold Washington. As if they fucking like Harold Washington. Right. But they would always use that. Right. But the 88 campaign, I think, is really crucial, and, you know, it really scared the Democrats even more. And, you know, they ran one of the worst candidates ever. Who ran one of the worst, you know, in 1984. 1988.
- [20:38]
Scott Parkins
Think about mediocre campaigns.
- [20:40]
Bob Bozanko
Well, no, I was like, in 1980, Jimmy Carter ran the worst campaign ever in 1984. Oh, my God, you can't do worse than Mondale du Glaucus in 88. Gore, Kerry, Clinton, you know, parent. But I really think that 88 campaign and the success. And that's it. The success, the popularity and, And Jesse Jackson came across as sincere. Right. You know, he, he, he. When he was holding a kid or talking to some poor people or talking to an old person in a wheelchair, you felt like he really did give a shit, you know?
- [21:15]
Scott Parkins
Yeah. And I mean, I guess that's what Bill Clinton did, is he was able to fake that. Oh, Clinton was the sincerity fake.
- [21:24]
Bob Bozanko
Once you fake sincerity, you got to make that.
- [21:25]
Scott Parkins
Yeah, there you go.
- [21:27]
Bob Bozanko
You met. Oh, go ahead.
- [21:28]
Scott Parkins
Do we want to touch on the international solidarity?
- [21:30]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah, that's. I was just going to say. You want to.
- [21:32]
Scott Parkins
Yeah.
- [21:32]
Bob Bozanko
Because that's really crucial part of this, too, which also really pisses off the, the establishment.
- [21:39]
Scott Parkins
Yeah. And also it's also, it's important to contrast this with the international solidarity stuff with the progressives today and, and the sort of speaking of fake sincerity as far as, like, international issues go. But, like, it's. I think it's.
- [21:52]
Bob Bozanko
You're not referring to aoc, I hope.
- [21:54]
Scott Parkins
Or Bernie, you know, referring. I mean, I mean, I just want to be like, you know, just to be real. Is that like, you know, definitely coming out of this sort of like this post 60s new left period where, you know, a big part of the movement that definitely has a lot of like, what's called anti imperialist politics. But, like, you know, Jesse very much, like I said before is like, you know, he very much ingratiates himself with the anti apartheid movement. You know, we have, you know, Reagan is, you know, buddying up with the apartheid regime in South Africa while, you know, Jesse's on the streets, you know, going to jail with people who are trying to get companies to drop business with, you know, the apartheid regime, trying to get the government to move on, you know, to act on. On apartheid.
- [22:39]
Bob Bozanko
I believe in. In 86 was when the arrests at the embassy began. He was the first one. I remember it was like a huge news story. I was living in D.C. at the time. And he had gone to the embassy and just walked in and refused to leave and began that, that kind of sit in, you know, kind of arrest the movement, sit in movement at the embassy. Sorry.
- [22:59]
Scott Parkins
No, it's okay. I just think we should even maybe someday do a show on the history of the anti apartheid movement. But I feel like it was like a pivotal moment for a lot of people. But Jackson was in solidarity with Nelson Mandela. He was in solidarity with the anc. And you don't really see any sort of mainstream progressive really kind of taking up that sort of taken a position like that, I think. So I think that's actually pretty important. He was also in solidarity with the Palestinians. Right. That's definitely like a third rail issue these days. And so it's very important. And then there's also where he was like, you know, you see images of him with, like, Fidel, you see images of him with Ortega, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. And these are all places where the US Is actively supporting, you know, war and violence against these, you know, people in Palestine, people in Nicaragua, people in South Africa.
- [24:00]
Bob Bozanko
In the 84 campaign, he went to Cuba.
- [24:03]
Scott Parkins
And the 84 campaign, the coolest part.
- [24:05]
Bob Bozanko
Of that was like, he didn't apologize and he didn't recant. Right. He went on humanitarian missions. He got a downed American flyer. Was it in. Was that in Syria?
- [24:17]
Scott Parkins
It was in Beirut. I mean, it was in Lebanon.
- [24:19]
Bob Bozanko
It was in Lebanon.
- [24:20]
Scott Parkins
Robert Goodman.
- [24:21]
Bob Bozanko
Robert Goodman and then escorted him to the White House. And Reagan had to look at Jesse Jackson, who got this guy freed right from captivity. The, the sport of Palestinians I remember was just, it's still today. You know, I've been involved in like, kind of Palestinian solidarity for decades. And Jesse Jackson has a good, a good name in, in those circles for what he did. I mean, in the 80s, nobody, nobody in American politics would go near Palestine. And he did it. You know, he supported the Sun, Denise. This. He was active in the anti nuclear, you know, the no nukes movement. Just, you know, I really think in a lot of ways he was kind of. I don't want to get like, melodramatic, the last of this or the last of that, but there was something going on there that you don't. You haven't seen since then, really.
- [25:09]
Scott Parkins
I heard one commentator today talk about how he was a bridge to the civil rights generation and to the black power era. And I, and I do think. I do think that's somewhat important to note, too. I, I feel like there's a lot of, there's a lot of youth who are out on the streets around Gaza, around what happened in Gaza, around Black Lives Matter and things like that. And Jesse, you know, engaged with those folks. And last year he actually joined a boycott of Target over dei, DEI programs. Apparently he was too sick to really have anything to say about what's been happening even more recently with Trump and ICE and things. But know, he would have been out in the streets if he could have been.
- [25:43]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. And, and, you know, now he's, you know, everything gets commodified. Right. And so now it's like, you know, Black History Month, where we are. Jesse Jackson will be on like a mural with people and. But, you know, the first presidential candidate. But like, I think it's like King, right. Where that's why we do these shows on King, the radicalism of Martin Luther King. There was more to Jesse Jackson than that. Right. And he's flawed like, you know, like everybody else. And, you know, he had his detractors like everybody else. But, you know, he, he stood up. You know, you mentioned the Palestinian thing. I mean, he was, you know, attacked, apparently, you know, off the record, he made some comments in, in about.
- [26:19]
Scott Parkins
Yeah, I forgot to bring to that. I forgot to bring that up.
- [26:21]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. The Jewish community in New York. And, and he was attacked and vilified.
- [26:24]
Scott Parkins
For that by the mayor of New York.
- [26:27]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. But at Koch. Right. And. And so he, he just kind of, he, he took all those arrows. Right. And got, you know, fought through it. In 1992, there was a lot of speculation that he'd run again, but he didn't. And unfortunately, I think in retrospect, I could say, unfortunately, that was kind of the ultimate triumph of the DLC in this kind of democratic movement with Bill Clinton, which was kind of warmed over Reagan. Clinton was kind of Reagan without the really ugly, sharpened fangs but you get things like the welfare reform.
- [27:01]
Scott Parkins
Slick Reagan. He was like. Slick Reagan?
- [27:03]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah, slick Reagan. The crime act and all that kind of stuff. Right. And, you know, deregulation. What do you call repeal? Glass Steagall. So Jackson clearly, you know, lost that big battle, which was kind of inevitable anyway.
- [27:16]
Scott Parkins
But there was a notable event in the. In the 92 campaign where Clinton gave a speech calling out a rapper, Sister Soulja, because she had said something there about blacks in LA going to shoot white people instead of other blacks. He actually made that speech with Jackson on stage, I believe. And it's. Am I wrong?
- [27:39]
Bob Bozanko
I don't know.
- [27:40]
Scott Parkins
I think. I think Jackson was sitting there on stage with him and. And, you know, it's. It's politically calculated move to basically distance themselves from like, the sort of like progressive black agenda, in my opinion.
- [27:51]
Bob Bozanko
Yeah. Oh, you mean by Clinton.
- [27:53]
Scott Parkins
Yeah, by Clinton.
- [27:54]
Bob Bozanko
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize Jesse was on.
- [27:57]
Scott Parkins
I think he was. I'm pretty sure he was.
- [28:00]
Bob Bozanko
But, yeah, that. I think Clinton. It's always struck me like Toni Morrison called Clinton the first black president. I never understood that because he and his wife, you know, they were the people who called them super predators. They created these, you know, welfare and crime bills that disproportionately affected black and blacks. You have this kind of hyper incarceration during the Clinton years. You have the disparity and crack and powder cocaine sentencing. Right. And so the idea that Bill Clinton somehow responded to the black community, Iowa's found, like, just disturbing, you know. But Jesse Jackson, you know, it's hard to look at somebody who, you know, really did operate in kind of an electoral politics realm, you know. But Jackson, I think, was. Was so much more than that.
- [28:44]
Scott Parkins
Clinton made those comments at a Rainbow Coalition event.
- [28:47]
Bob Bozanko
Oh, okay. I gotta say, I had one brief experience with Jesse Jackson. He had his radio. He had a radio show. And in 2017, I don't know why I was doing a bunch of radio about Hurricane Harvey in Houston, because Houston got pelted because it was so developed, over developed. And I don't know how, but somehow his radio show got my name and it was cool. I got to talk to Jesse Jackson for about 10 minutes about Hurricane Harvey and development Houston. And I called it Cowboy Capitalism. He really liked that name. But for the next week, I wouldn't shut up. People were just sick of me because I kept saying, like, I was interviewed by Jesse Jackson. I talked to Jesse Jackson. So I did. Finally, I think people, I got, okay, you heard enough. But everybody I talked to was like, did, you know I talked to Jesse Jackson?
- [29:33]
Scott Parkins
In my very young days of doing Politics in the mid-90s, I went to Ross Perot's we the People convention in Dallas, and Jesse Jackson was there, and I sort of, like, was walking through the halls and bumped into his entourage, which he was.
- [29:46]
Bob Bozanko
He's a.
- [29:46]
Scott Parkins
He was a huge guy, too. He was a big guy.
- [29:50]
Bob Bozanko
Well, he went. He went to college. He was gonna play football at the University of Illinois, I believe. And I don't quote me on this, I'm not sure if. If it's correct, but I think he was a quarterback. And in the early 60s, black guys weren't allowed to be quarterback. So I think part of it was like they were gonna make him, like, play a different position or something like that. But that may be. I may be conflating something else, but just, you know, just seemed like a cool guy. One of my best friends named his son after him, who was my son Kelsey's friend, you know, so he meant a lot to us. He really did. And, you know, I can look back and, you know, it's. It's fairly bleak time, right? But, you know, there, there. There were moments when we, you know, as he would always say, keep up a lie. Right. And, you know, today, you know, like aoc, who I think just stumbled through this talk in Munich, and to see these left maggot like Jacobin is now, like, going nuts about how amazing AOC is and how great she was, and just. That's sad to me. Like, what we have today, you know, it's not what Jackson was doing 40 years ago, 30 years ago.
- [30:53]
Scott Parkins
That's. That's what I'm saying is that there's this false sincerity. And honestly, I still think center, at least center right politics around a lot of the progressives in Congress, like, not Rashida Tlieb or Ilhan Omar, but like many of the others who identify as. As progressives still have, you know, politics where they're like, it was good that we took Maduro out or, yeah, you know, I, you know, Israel has a right to defend itself, and AOC was.
- [31:19]
Bob Bozanko
Pimping for NATO and Ukraine weaponization. You know, it's. It's grotesque. And Sanders won't say anything about, you know, won't use the word genocide. And yet every time he says something about Venezuela, he has to talk about Chavez, Amadoro, and use the word dictator just like AOC didn't. Whatever. But the point is, like, you know, it's. It's. Jackson was unapologetic when he went to Cuba when he talked to Arafat, you know, when he defended the anc, which was being labeled a communist and terrorist. Remember, the ALC was, I'm sorry, the ANC was considered a terrorist group. Mandela was on the terrorist list until, I Forget, in the 2000s, you know, and Jackson didn't really flinch from that. You know, he had his laws and there are moments when he didn't live up to those ideals like everybody else. But for the most part, you know, he took a lot of errands and.
- [32:15]
Scott Parkins
Yeah, what's, what's your saint? He's not a genius. He's not a saint. He's a genius.
- [32:18]
Bob Bozanko
He's not a saint. He's a genius. Not a saint. Right.
- [32:21]
Scott Parkins
He's a genius. Yeah, yeah.
- [32:23]
Bob Bozanko
And he thought he's not a saint. But the guy like he took a lot of arrows and he, and he meant a lot and you know, he said keep up a lot, which is harder and harder to do. And I'm sure, you know, like he would be saying that now if, you know, if he had been able to at the end. Right.
- [32:37]
Scott Parkins
But we, we have, we have a much more robust, revitalized progressive movement in many ways right now, despite our, our critiques of the flaws of the leadership. And I, I actually think Jackson is partially responsible for that. Like he was, he, like I called him a bridge a minute ago, but he in many ways is a bridge from like an earlier era to like what we're seeing now. And I think that's important like you know, for 42% of self described Democrats identify as socialists. So you know, part of that is because of what Jesse Jackson did like 30, 40 years ago.
- [33:11]
Bob Bozanko
Well, I would think anyone who's, let's say your age and older probably has some, some part of Jesse Jackson and his or her background had to probably mean something. Right. Because you were like what in your.
- [33:25]
Scott Parkins
I was, I was 18. I was 18 going on 19 in the 88 presidential.
- [33:31]
Bob Bozanko
Okay, so you're old enough. Right. So anybody, I would say of your generation, surely my generation. Because I'm older than you.
- [33:36]
Scott Parkins
Right.
- [33:37]
Bob Bozanko
If you're part of that, you know, then there's part of you that remembers that and there's probably something that happened back then involving Jesse Jackson that, that stuck with you. I know, you know, I've told you many times that, you know, like the, the Central American movement in the 80s really kind of was what kind of made me lose it, you know, made me go nuts. Right.
- [33:57]
Scott Parkins
Yeah.
- [33:57]
Bob Bozanko
But Jackson campaign was a big part of that it really was both in 84 and 88. They're the only two times in my life I've kind of given a. About like a presidential campaign and. Because I saw something bigger in it, you know, and, and I think a lot of people in Minnesota, in Minneapolis and in LA and in Chicago and all over, you know, a lot of the older folks. See, that's one thing that's very cool. You know, you're seeing this really diverse group right now in the streets. Not just like culturally or ethnically or gender, but in terms of age groups too. There's a lot of old people. There's people, a lot of people older than me in the streets of Minneapolis, you know, carrying whistles around and getting in the faces of ice Nazis, you know, and. And I think a lot of that, you know, they probably remember what it was like in the 70s and 80s and probably remember Jackson, you know.
- [34:46]
Scott Parkins
Yeah.
- [34:46]
Bob Bozanko
Teller Jesse Jackson. Present day.
- [34:49]
Scott Parkins
Yep, Present day. Folks, you've been listening to the Green and Red podcast. Please check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Bluesky. If you watch us on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. If you really. If you're listening to this on an audio platform, give us a rate and review. If you really like us, go to greenredpodcast.org and hit that support button or become a patron@patreon.com greenred podcast and until next time, make trouble and misbehave.
- [35:39]
Bob Bozanko
Sam.