Lights, camera, Jackson: Civil Rights leader also became a pop culture presence

It was 1971, and the world still seemed new.

It was especially true if you were a 6-year-old, plopped in front of a black-and-white Zenith TV, waiting for the latest episode of "Sesame Street" — a program that had debuted just a couple seasons earlier — to air on WTTW.

At some point during the show, between the quick-hit lessons about letters and numbers, the Rev. Jesse Jackson appears with a large group of young children, representing virtually every color and ethnic group.

With his Afro in full bloom, Jackson takes his youthful rainbow coalition through a call-and-response recitation of the Rev. William Borders poem that Jackson made internationally known: "I Am Somebody."

PBS, which broadcast "Sesame Street," was still in its infancy. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was as recent then as, say, the COVID-19 crisis is now. And 30-year-old Jackson was at the start of a quarter-century run as a cultural presence.

Jackson's decades civil rights efforts and running for president in 1984 and 1988 are his most important and lasting work. But that he did this while also forging a position in the nation's pop cultural firmament is nonetheless remarkable.

He could be inspirational, as he was on "Sesame Street" and during a 1989 appearance on the sitcom “A Different World,” talking about the role of young people in elections.

But Jackson could also be quite funny, as evidenced by the straight-faced delivery of Dr. Suess' "Green Eggs and Ham" on Saturday Night Live in 1991.

"He understood media," Charles Whitaker, dean of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. said. "He understood the relevance of being able to engage with audiences. The combination of politician and preacher just made him a magnetic force."

Behind the camera

Linking Black entertainers to the civil/political/economics rights movement was also important to Jackson. He was a producer of Wattstax, the 1972 benefit concert by Stax Records to mark the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots in Los Angeles. The event became a double album and a concert film in 1973.

Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, the Emotions, the Bar-Kays and comedian Richard Pryor were among the performers who got-down at Wattstax. But so did Jackson.

"This is a beautiful day," Jackson told the LA Memorial Coliseum audience in his opening speech. "It is a new day. It is a day of Black awareness. It is a day of Black people taking care of Black people’s business. We are together, we are unified and all in accord. Because when we are together we got power. And we can make decisions."

Later in 1972 at the International Amphitheatre at 42nd and Halsted streets, Jackson pulled off a similar effort: Save the Children, a benefit concert for his Operation PUSH.

The line up included Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five, the Temptations, Roberta Flack, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers and more.

The homegrown Chi-Lites performed, too. The group was hot, having just scored with hits such as "Have You Seen Her?" and "Oh, Girl."

"People were wrapped around the block every day of that show," Marshall Thompson, the last surviving member of the original Chi-Lites said. He had been friends with Jackson since the 1960s. "I mean, it was like magic."

Thompson said Jackson encouraged the group to write their 1971 message song, "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People." The lyrics almost read like an excerpt of Jackson's speeches:

If you don't have enough to eat
How can you think of love?
You don't have the time to care
So it's crime you're guilty of

The Save the Children benefit was turned into a concert film that had a short theatrical run then went unseen for 50 years. Directed by Stan Lathan — a director of "Sesame Street" episodes during Jackson's 1971 appearance — the film was digitally restored and put back in circulation in 2024.

Who’s got next?

During his time in the cultural spotlight, Jackson was also parodied by Eddie Murphy on SNL and Keenan Ivory Wayans on the '90s FOX sketch show "In Living Color."

He hosted SNL in 1984. He made political points in his opening monologue — and snuck some wisecracks.

"I took [Fidel] Castro to church for the first time in 30 years," he said. "If I coulda stayed [in Cuba] longer, I coulda actually got him a shave."

"Being able to make fun of himself, I think made him more human," Jazz Institute of Chicago Executive Director Heather Ireland Robinson, who knows the Jackson family, said.

In 1990, Kris Kristofferson wrote a song called "Jesse Jackson" and sang it with Willie Nelson. The pair sang: "Hold on brother, Jesse Jackson. There's a better world a'coming. Where a man can hope a man will show some heart. You just keep right on believing. In the better side of human. They ain't ready for it yet, but it's a start. And you move'em when you hit'em in the heart."

Today's cultural and media landscape is as fragmented as it is ever-present. Can a civil rights leader today have the same impact as did Jackson? Likely not, Whitaker said.

"We don't see anyone breaking through quite like in the way that Jesse Jackson did," he said. "Even a Barack Obama, who's a phenomenon and a wonder in his own right, has not used that platform in the same way as Jesse Jackson."