How racism, reform and grace shaped Jesse White's long career

He's fought racism and corruption, inspired thousands of young people and managed an office serving 8.7 million drivers.

Now, after over two decades on the job, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is taking a break - of sorts.

White, who is 88, chose not to run for reelection. On Jan. 9, his successor, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, will be sworn in.

The move will give White a chance to be "basically full time" with the famous Jesse White Tumblers, which he founded in the 1950s.

"I've had the great pleasure of serving for 24 years," said White, who is Illinois' longest-serving secretary of state.

In a recent interview, the iconic Democrat shared highlights of a career that included being a 101st Airborne Division paratrooper, a professional baseball player and a statewide officeholder.

'I'll fix you'

White was a young child when his family moved from downstate Alton to a multicultural neighborhood on Chicago's North Side.

A diligent student, he drummed for his high school band and was a tumbling, baseball and basketball standout.

"I was raised up in an integrated environment. ... The high school I attended was a combination of Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and we all got along well."

Moving on to Alabama State University, however, put White in a whole new world as a Black college student in the segregated Deep South.

The entrenched racism hit home on a bus ride in Montgomery in the early 1950s.

"I sat right behind the driver. The people in the back of the bus were yelling and screaming at me. ... I kind of ignored them. With the ruckus from the back, the bus driver turned around and saw me sitting behind him and asked, 'Boy ... what you doing sitting here?'

"I said, 'Well, I paid you my fare, which I think is the most important thing.'"

The driver interrupted him and pointed to a sign indicating white riders should sit in the front, Black riders in the back. "You have to get behind that sign," he ordered.

When White again refused, the bus driver threatened him. "I'll fix you," the driver vowed.

The bus neared a parked squad car, and the driver beckoned to the police officer. Fortunately for White, a car ran a red light, diverting the officer.

At the downtown Montgomery stop, exasperated Black riders spoke with White. "We don't operate down here like that," they warned. "They'll put you in jail and throw away the key and beat you and do a lot of terrible things to you."

Their advice resonated with White. "The next time I went on the bus I went straight to the back," he said. "I didn't want that kind of confrontation."

MLK's advice

Times were changing, however. And at church, White met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks' Dec. 1, 1955, arrest for refusing to sit in the rear of the bus.

King was a student of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent tactics and described them to White and others as "if you get struck on one cheek ... you turn so you get struck on the other cheek."

"So then, I raised my hand," White recalled. "I said, 'Dr. King, you know me, you know me well. You know I'm from Chicago, and we don't operate like that.'"

"Just follow the script," King advised, "and everything will be fine, Jess."

"And as it turned out, we were able to break the back of the segregationists out of Montgomery," White said.

Thousands of Montgomery Blacks boycotted the bus system from December 1955 to December 1956. The Supreme Court ruled in November 1956 that segregation on buses was unconstitutional.

In his senior year of college, the Chicago Cubs recruited White for a tryout. Hundreds of players showed up; the baseball organization signed five - including White.

A few days before spring training in 1957, he was drafted - this time by the Army.

It was another new world for Pvt. White. A chance encounter with a 101st Airborne Division sergeant, who "jumped 10 feet" after learning about White's contract with the Cubs, steered him to paratrooper training.

It was White's dream, but things unraveled when the tough-as-nails jump school director singled him out and ordered a daily regime of pushups.

"I did almost 900 pushups in jump school over 2½ weeks," White recalled.

On the last day of training, the instructor said, "'Private White, you're a hell of a man and a hell of a soldier,'" then asked him to dinner with his family.

White never forgot the experience. "They wanted to try and break me," he recalled. "They try to get rid of as many people as they could in jump school. When you measure up, it's 'two thumbs-up, we got the right guy.'"

Looking back, White thinks his trial by fire occurred because of his baseball notability and the elite corps' desire to admit only the best.

Amid the pushup ordeal, leaping out of a plane was nothing. "It gets to a point where it's like putting on a pair of shoes," White explained.

He remembered his unit's deployment to Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958 after Vice President Richard Nixon's motorcade was attacked by a mob.

En route, a commander announced: "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is the 1st Marine Division has landed in Caracas and quelled the unrest," meaning White's aircraft could return to Fort Campbell. "The bad news is, it's going to have to be a night jump.'

"We had never jumped at night," White said.

The Cubs call

Upon White's discharge in 1959, the Cubs scooped him up. He played for the organization's farm teams through 1966, and in the offseasons he formed a tumbling team to help at-risk kids and taught school.

White was also learning more lessons about the reach of racism.

On a Texas road trip, White and two other Black players were banned from a restaurant.

The team manager, South Carolinian Walt Dixon, told the restaurateur, "If you're not going to feed them, you won't feed any of us."

"I thought a lot of (Dixon)," White recalled, "because he showed me what he was made of."

At a small-town stadium, hecklers yelled, "Whitey, where'd you get that suntan?

"Every time, they called me something negative, I'd hit a home run or steal a base," White said.

By his last at bat, he received a standing ovation. White said it showed him that the crowd "appreciated my talent rather than the color of my skin."

With the Salt Lake City Bees, a AAA team, and a batting average of .291, White was "a heartbeat from the majors" when racism once again intervened.

A Deseret News reporter who wanted to write about the Chicago center fielder arranged a lunch interview. While White chatted with the writer, a white woman, a Cubs official spotted the two and confronted him later.

"I saw you having lunch with a white woman," the official said.

White explained, but the man insisted the woman was White's girlfriend - and ended his hopes of playing for the Cubs.

"I felt like I was back in the South again," White said.

Years later in 2021, the Cubs held a Jesse White Day and signed him to an honorary major league contract.

DMV exorcism

When he retired his bat, White returned to teaching and the Tumblers.

"I teach the kids in my program that they cannot ever dislike anyone because of race, creed or color. That's the ugliest card in the deck," he said.

Since founding the gravity-defying Tumblers, White has helped more than 18,500 youths and taken them across the world to show off their talents.

"I attribute my success with young people to tough love," said White, who requires the athletes to avoid drugs, gangs and alcohol and to maintain a "C" average. The organization also gives out college scholarships and trunkfuls of school supplies to high school seniors.

Tumbler and Illinois State University graduate Star Johnson joined the troupe at age 14.

"He's a coach, he's a mentor, he's a father figure to a lot of young people, myself included," she said.

In 1974, White was encouraged to run for state representative and served in the General Assembly through 1996, when voters elected him Cook County recorder of deeds.

"I never spent time castigating my opponent. People want to know what are you going to do," White said.

In the late 1990s, the secretary of state's office was in shambles. Along with substandard service, it was an open secret the agency was a political fundraising machine for incumbent Republican George Ryan.

White ran for the job in 1998 and made history as Illinois' first Black secretary of state. Ryan won the governorship, only to be convicted of corruption in 2006 after a scandal over giving out licenses for bribes.

White walked into a minefield and enlisted former U.S. Attorney Jim Burns to help clean house and restore confidence in the tarnished department.

Workers were expected "to buy fundraising tickets, sell fundraising tickets or get involved with political work," White said.

One priority was re-educating staff members that their duties did not include getting the boss reelected anymore.

If a worker sent White a donation, "we returned that check to them." he recounted.

He digitalized the office and reduced infamous wait times, built up the organ donor program, expanded drunken driving repercussions and tightened driving rules for teens.

In late 2008, White drew another ethical line - balking at fellow Democrat Rod Blagojevich's request to certify Roland Burris as a U.S. senator. Authorities said the governor was trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's seat to the highest bidder.

"I refused to do so because here was a gentleman under a cloud of controversy, but he wanted me to affix my signature to a document put forth by him," White said.

"I didn't trust him. I had some problems with him and I thought he was asking me to do the wrong thing. And I didn't want any part of it."

Asked if he got any pushback from the governor, White said, "I did, yes." He also got "two thumbs-up from society."

Blagojevich was convicted of corruption and spent almost eight years in prison until then-President Donald Trump commuted his sentence in 2020.

White, asked about his decision to retire, said he thought he "should step aside and allow someone else to run one of the largest secretary of state's offices in the nation."

His final message to constituents is: "I just want to thank the people of the great state of Illinois for allowing me to serve in this capacity."