End of the Political Rainbow
by George E. Curry

When I was covering Jesse Jackson?s 1984 crusade for president?it hadn?t reached the campaign stage at the time ? nothing seemed to bother Jackson more than African-American leaders endorsing Walter Mondale for president. Never mind that the former senator from Minnesota had an impressive record on civil rights. Never mind that as Jimmy Carter?s former vice president, Mondale had a better chance of getting elected to the top office than Jackson. Never mind that Jackson didn?t have a snowflake in hell?s chance of winning the Democratic nomination. All that mattered was that most Black officials were siding with the party?s eventual nominee over Jesse Jackson, who never had held office as a dogcatcher, let alone a high-ranking national office.

Now, the tables are reversed. Al Sharpton is clearly the most progressive Democratic candidate running for president. And what are the Jackson 2 doing? Jesse Jr. has just endorsed Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor. Jesse No. 1 has declined to endorse Sharpton, claiming that he is staying out of the race at this time. He?s staying out of the race, he told me in a recent telephone conversation, yet he was about to fly off to Mississippi to support the race of a Black candidate for lieutenant governor, Barbara Blackmon.To me, this marks the end of the Rainbow. And it underscores a certain hypocrisy some of our national leaders consistently practice. When Jesse No. 1 is the candidate, everyone is supposed to fall in line behind him and be as excited as he is about whatever fleeting issue that is occupying his mind at the time. Yet, when someone else is positioned for leadership—even when that person has supported him in the past—suddenly it’s acceptable to stay out of the fray.

First of all, Jesse Jackson couldn’t stay out of the race if he wanted to. He may be walking the sidelines now, but when the Democratic Party settles on a nominee, Jackson will be out, as he always is, picking the party’s electoral cotton, urging African-Americans to flock to the polls regardless of which of the seven White men running for president gets the Democratic nomination.

As a national figure once told me in private, “Jesse Jackson is like a terrorist—all he wants is an airplane and some money.”

That may be an overstatement, but it’s not that far off the mark. Jackson always has wanted the “respect” of having his own plane and budget to pick Democratic cotton and once that was in hand, as he would so often say during that 1984 crusade, the hands that once picked cotton will now pick the next president. He should revise that to add—as long as that “next president” is not Black and deserving of his support.

Actually, this is a reflection of a larger problem. Before many of our Black elected officials won office, they vigorously complained about our community being underrepresented—they still voice that complaint—and argued that the political process needed a breath of fresh air. However, once they became insiders rather than outsiders, they began to sing a different tune. Like many White politicians, they started to view public office as a position to be inherited, not earned.

So, when Rep. Harold Ford Sr. (D-Tenn.) looked for someone to succeed him in Congress, he didn’t have to look far—he chose his son, Harold Jr. When William L. Clay (D-Mo.) decided to step down, surprise, surprise, he turned to his son, Lacy. And although Jesse Jackson probably couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in Chicago, his son, Jesse Jr., could get elected to Congress.

Don’t misunderstand my point. I am not saying Harold Jr., Lacy and Jesse Jr. are not capable lawmakers in their own right; they are. Still, it’s a sad commentary that when African-Americans get elected to office, their idea of passing the torch on to the next generation is to keep it in the family.

The tragedy of Jesse Jackson’s 1984 crusade and 1988 campaign is that despite all the talk of building a “Rainbow Coalition” that would stay in place after the presidential runs and help others—presumably non-family members, as well—assume power, it has been a bust. That is, unless you count nepotism as a sign of political progress.

Beyond that, it’s quite telling when a Black person who sought the presidency as an outsider becomes an insider—at least, in his mind—and then treats the new outsider like the insiders once treated him. That’s not my idea of keeping hope alive.

George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is “The Best of Emerge Magazine,” an anthology published by Ballantine Books. He can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com.