Repeat After Me: ‘I Am Somebody’
There is a great story with the makings of an epic poem, and at its center are two men: Lyndon Johnson and Governor George Wallace. The 36th president summoned the segregationist governor of Alabama to the White House to make a personal appeal. Wallace had refused to protect Blacks trying to exercise their right to vote from assault, harassment, and even murder. To quell the tumult, and to move toward curing the white supremacist-inflicted disease of democracy, Johnson proposed that Wallace enlist the National Guard to fend off the violence of racial fascism. Feigning naivete, Wallace insisted that he had no such power, delegating that role to the county registrars. Johnson suggested that Wallace “persuade” them to do it. Shifting from naivete to false diffidence, Wallace claimed that he could not convince them, even if he tried.
After taking him to task for his dishonesty, Johnson presented a personal question to Wallace that transcended the next morning’s headlines: “Now, George, you’ve worked your life in politics. Let’s not think about 1965. Let’s think about 1985, George. Neither of us will be around. We’ll be dead. Now, what do you want people saying about you and your State of Alabama? Do you want people to say, ‘George Wallace, he built,’ or do you want people to say, ‘George Wallace, he hated’?”
On March 6th, my wife and I attended the funeral service, a “people’s homegoing celebration,” for a man who built: Reverend Jesse Jackson. It was at the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, in the massive sanctuary called the “House of Hope.”
The distinguished platform of speakers testified to the architecture and engineering of the fallen civil rights leader. Jackson’s son, Yusef, spoke about how he built the organization, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and how, along with his widow, Jacqueline Jackson, he built a family full of happy and successful children and grandchildren. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson explained how Jackson helped to build a more fair, diverse, and inclusive city, while a political son of that city, former president Barack Obama, credited Jackson with building the ramps that he would ride to the presidency. One of Obama’s predecessors, Bill Clinton, made his remarks more intimate, describing in detail how, through consistent acts of kindness and compassion, Jackson built friendships that endured decades, arguments, and the inevitable changes of life. He told a moving story about Jackson calling the White House in the middle of Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. “I thought he wanted to talk to me,” the former president said, “But he wanted to talk to my daughter, Chelsea, to make sure she was ok.”
Speakers ranging from ministers and rabbis to governor JB Pritzker and congresswoman Maxine Waters measured how he helped to build the movement that acts as the moral center of American history, the Civil Rights Movement. And in his subsequent efforts—fighting economic apartheid, running for the presidency on a progressive, multiracial, feminist, pro-labor and pro-gay rights agenda, waging peace missions around the world—they saw a man building a world with greater opportunities for justice; toward the “beloved community” his mentor Martin Luther King had envisioned.”
The most powerful speaker of the service, perhaps surprisingly, was NBA Hall of Fame legend, Isiah Thomas. He discussed how Jackson built psychological scaffolds for self-respect and personal ambition for those in their lowest moments. Tears fell down the faces of thousands of people in the audience when Thomas told a story of standing in a soup line as a young boy with his mother in Chicago. Jackson helped to organize the charitable meal. When Thomas was on the sidewalk in his own neighborhood, feeling humiliated and defeated, hoping that none of his classmates would walk by, Jackson approached him and his mother. The reverend hugged Thomas’s mother. Then, he got down on one knee, looked in the eyes of the young boy, and said, “Repeat after me, ‘I am somebody.’”
Every person, whether their lives are public or private, has flaws and failures. Jackson was no exception. As Tavis Smiley has often said of the civil rights leader, “He wasn’t a perfect servant. He was a public servant.” But it was striking that among the audience of thousands—which included not only those with political and economic power, but people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, generations, and genders—the criticisms no longer mattered. The slanderous bromides, alleging self-aggrandizement and publicity chasing, evaporated like the rain falling outside the church. The service was a monument in motion to a man who built.
And what became of those who hated? The police officer who arrested him for checking a book out of the library? The cowards who made anonymous death threats on not only him, but also his children? The slick merchants of hate speech, like Rush Limbaugh, who attacked him throughout his entire life? Many of them died in anonymity, but even if they had fame, what did they build that anyone will remember? What structures with the mark of their hands, political or psychological, will help children, like the young Isiah Thomas, believe in their own potential and make something of themselves?
As profoundly sad as it was to lay a hero to rest, and for me and many others to say goodbye to a friend, there was an overwhelming feeling of joy in the aptly named “House of Hope.” It was the same joy with which Jackson led his missions, launched his campaigns, and committed to service—the joy of unity, the joy of positive passion, and the joy of devotion to principles and values that are, in a word, good.
Jackson was a good-humored man, quick with a smile, embrace, and welcoming gesture. The “House of Hope” snapped along the current of those same qualities, while a genuine rainbow coalition celebrated and mourned a man we admired. There were joyful expressions through music. Opal Staples sang the Stevie Wonder classic “Higher Ground,” an especially rollicking and moving choice, because Jackson would often use the same hit as his entrance music at Rainbow/PUSH. Jennifer Hudson’s extraordinary rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come” was so powerful that it actually became overwhelming. There were joyful expressions of the Black Christianity that was immeasurably important and inspiring to Jackson, and there were amusing and uplifting stories from every speaker. But there was also a form of political joy.
It occurred to me as I watched people in the crowd laugh, cry, hug, dance, and shout that American politics is missing joyful passion, inclusion, and engagement. The right wing has become addicted to bigotry—to quote Barack Obama’s eulogy, creating a method of destructive leadership with “bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.” Meanwhile, far too much of the progressive left uses politics as an amplifier of little more than resentment and vilification. Often with great reason, progressives decry the influence of the “billionaire class” or military-industrial complex, but struggle to get beyond opprobrium of parties they feel violate an increasingly complicated sociopolitical and rhetorical code.
Reverend Jesse Jackson was full of anger, but he was also full of love and hope. He was a ferocious critic of racism, state sponsored violence, corruption, and exploitation of the poor, but he was also an inspired preacher of perseverance, faith, and the acquisition of purpose through actions of assistance for the disenfranchised and downtrodden. For most of his life, he worked seven days a week, not only because he was angry at oppression, but because he loved what he did.
That spirit of love was in the building during Jackson’s funeral service, and it animated the possibility of political transformation according to the exuberance of hope. Rabbi Sharon Brous and Pastor Jamal Bryant both quoted the Psalm, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
I remembered a question that Jackson asked the congregation during his eulogy at the homegoing for Rosa Parks. The inquiry applies equally to his own service with an answer that only the living can determine: “Is this a sentimental ceremony or a freedom rally?”
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