When Jesse Jackson spoke at UCLA in the ’90s to bring out the student vote for a presidential election, I was a grad student there.
As his awe-inspiring speech closed, I jumped on a bench waving my hand and shouting so he could hear across the quad: “Jesse, you forgot to tell them that the people defeated David Duke” Jesse looked right at me and said, “I should make you my speech writer,” and blew a kiss. I ran up to him to him: We hugged and took photos with the other student leaders.
Today, I recall the generosity of his spirit, treating me as an equal, someone like him who cares about our common future.
Jesse was a inveterate trailblazer, setting down tracks for the rest of us to walk in. He was one of the original civil rights leaders, there when MLK died, here to pick up the pieces afterward; he ran for president knowing he would not win, but laying down those tracks for another black man, who would be Barack Obama.
Above all, he modeled what it means to be a persistent and resolute activist. He needs to be remembered for the enormity of his contribution to all our lives and to history.
