Daily Herald opinion: A complicated icon: In King’s shadow, Jackson brought practical achievements on stages large and small

It may be that the defining weakness of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s career was that, despite his myriad and substantial personal accomplishments, there was always in the background of his very public life, the unavoidable conclusion that he was not Martin Luther King Jr.

For both civil rights leaders, eloquence was the prime stock in trade. King’s took him across the country, gave him the prestige to become an effective organizer and helped him change the world with reflections like his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” and his “I Have A Dream” speech on the Washington mall. Jackson’s considerable skills also brought him worldwide notice and helped him produce real, practical benefits to the disenfranchised population he sought to elevate, yet always seemed somehow less apparent in King’s shadow.

That is too bad. For Jackson, who died Tuesday at age 84, had his own moments of personal distinction. His work building the Rainbow Coalition and founding Operation PUSH, alone, helped thousands of people get nutritious meals, stay in school and find meaningful jobs on which to build a more comfortable future. But with his insistent refrain for people of all walks of life, and especially those who feel diminished in society, to remember that “I am somebody,” he reinforced the kind of self-assurance and self-reliance that are the core of any successful life.

He was, to be sure, an imperfect public figure. He experienced scandal in his personal life and was once caught using offensive Jewish slurs. He was often accused, with just cause, of loving the spotlight a bit too much. But he persevered and sought to rise above his shortcomings.

And while his oratory may not have produced phrases repeated by every schoolchild and student of history, it certainly had the power to influence his time. His 1988 speech to the Democratic convention is famed for its concluding invocation to never surrender and “keep hope alive.” But that address is also notable for its own inflection, passion and power as he repeated his central theme to find “common ground” when working to solve the problems of society.

“Progress,” he said, “will not come through boundless liberalism nor static conservatism, but at the critical mass of mutual survival ... It takes two wings to fly. Whether you’re a hawk or a dove, you’re just a bird living in the same environment, in the same world.”

Then adding, “When we divide, we cannot win. We must find common ground as the basis for survival and development and change, and growth.”

Much of that famous Jackson speech was seen as a moment of proud consolation, an admission that though he had lost the numeric battle with Michael Dukakis for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination he would not surrender the values that drove his public life and that he believed were infused in the lasting campaign to build on America’s strength and influence.

It was a remarkable moment, certainly worthy of consideration alongside some of the great speeches of Jackson’s forebear and mentor. Yet, as we consider it, we can’t help remembering that Jackson didn’t limit his oratory and his energy purely to national and global affairs. Here in the suburbs of Chicago are men and women who remember and honor him for his willingness to pursue justice outside the spotlight.

“Anytime there was an injustice in the Western suburbs, I called Jesse, and he came,” says Regina Brent, president and founder of Unity Partnership and co-chair of the MLK Unity Project in DuPage County, in a story today by our Madhu Krishnamurthy.

He appeared at a suburban high school to bring attention to racial bullying. He spoke out when individuals at a suburban restaurant were asked to move because some customers were uncomfortable sitting near Blacks. He came to the support of a college professor punished for her political beliefs. And more.

Yet, one additional image sticks with us as we reflect on the passing of a national icon. It is from a scene described by our former columnist Burt Constable in August 2003.

Constable described an accidental encounter with Jackson in the stands at the MLB All-Star game that July. Constable, whose father was dying, was feeling “painfully alone in a crowd of people” far away from his family. He asked Jackson if, as a minister, he would write a quick note in his reporter’s notebook that he could share with his dad.

Jackson went a step further. Using Constable’s phone, he prayed with the fellow baseball fan and his mother, then scribbled these words to the dying father: “Brother Willy, May God bless and keep you. Nothing is too hard for God. Peace. Jesse Jackson.“

It’s no soaring “Keep hope alive!” nor a resounding “Common ground!” before tens of thousands of adoring supporters. But it is perhaps an appropriate, quietly powerful sentiment to remember as we pause to reflect on the complicated, perhaps not fully realized, legacy of a civil rights icon from Chicago.