At the recent Democratic Party convention, delegates cheered loudly when Jesse Jackson, a former civil rights leader, appeared on stage in a wheelchair to greet delegates. Jackson was the first African-American to seriously pursue the party’s presidential nomination.
If his first attempt, in 1984, captured the imagination of black voters, his second, four years later, was a historic breakthrough, mobilizing working people of all races to fight the economic violence of global capitalism. As one journalist wrote at the time, “To listen to Mr. Jackson on the podium is to receive a high-octane dose of economic populism.”
His message differed from the anti-import rhetoric of the only other progressive candidate, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt. Jackson instead directed his anger at American companies that were outsourcing American jobs, and warned his audiences against the jingoistic appeal of economic nationalism. “How foreign is foreign competition?” he asked. It was a good question.
“Our jobs are not being stolen by South Koreans and Taiwanese,” he proclaimed at rallies across the country. “They were moved to South Korea and Taiwan by American companies that get tax breaks.”
Before a crowd of 10,000 union members in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, Jesse Jackson said: “Thirty years ago, we marched to end racial violence. Today, we march to end economic violence. We fight for workers’ rights.”
His economic message resonates with many white working-class voters. A white Baltimore steelworker, Leonard Shindel, was quoted as saying by one journalist: “What he says that’s different from all the other Democrats is that we have to build a movement against economic violence, like the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”
Jesse Jackson did well in the first state primaries. He won 26% in Vermont, one of the whitest states in the Union, coming in second to Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis. He then did well on “Super Tuesday,” when sixteen Southern states voted. He won several, including South Carolina, where he won 54% of the vote, more than double the next three candidates combined.
He joined autoworkers in Flint, meatpackers in Milwaukee, hospital orderlies in Philadelphia, and firefighters in St. Louis. In Mobile, Alabama, he urged black replacement workers to stand picket. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, UAW Local 72, a largely white local, threw its support behind him, defying its national leadership. Asked why, the local president said, “Jesse Jackson may be black, but Lee Iacocca is black.” [le p.-d.g. de Chrysler] is white and he is taking away our jobs.”
Jesse Jackson’s decisive victory over Michael Dukakis in Michigan was the high point of his campaign.
For a moment, it seemed as if a new chapter in history was being written. Jesse Jackson crisscrossed the closely contested state of Wisconsin to appeal to working-class voters. At a rally in the industrial city of Sheboygan, he drew 1,500 people and received three standing ovations. The crowd was a “sea of white faces,” the newspapers reported. “When Jackson arrived, nearly everyone jumped to their feet and applauded. People stood on chairs. They held out their babies for the candidate to hold. They also held out their hands and jumped for joy when he shook them.” Arthur Fuller, a white Democrat who supported Ronald Reagan, promised to vote for Jackson this time: “If he is elected, he will think of the little people, of whom we are one.”
Ultimately, it was New York State that broke Jesse Jackson’s anti-establishment candidacy. His pro-Palestinian views did not resonate with many members of the state’s large Jewish community. Nor did his populist economic message resonate with many socially liberal but economically neoliberal white voters or with the party’s elite. Washington Post warns that “what Jackson offers is a powerful and dangerously seductive brand of economic populism and nationalism.” The Boston Globe goes so far as to say that Jackson should not even be considered as the party’s vice presidential candidate, because he would not contribute to balancing the ticket – that is, to complementing the presidential candidacy.
Technocrat Michael Dukakis, a lackluster candidate who championed welfare and retraining, won the party’s nomination but lost the presidential election by a landslide.
In retrospect, what stands out about Jesse Jackson’s quest to become the first black president of the United States is his populist message of economic and racial justice. He showed us that white working-class voters in the states of ” Rust Belt ” – the very people who are now at the heart of the November vote – are ready to vote for a racialized candidate if his message resonates with them.