The Rev. Jesse Jackson never held elected office in his adopted hometown of Chicago, or in the state of Illinois. The giant of the modern civil rights movement twice sought the Democratic Presidential nomination … coming as close as second in 1988 … but his only successful election was in 1990, when voters in Washington D.C. selected him to serve one term as a non-voting representative in the U.S. Senate.
But his imprint and influence on American politics is unmistakable, and can be seen in the faces of countless Black elected leaders, including former President Barack Obama, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. It’s also been acutely felt by the occupants of the fifth floor of Chicago City Hall, and in particular the man who works there now.
“I’m not mayor without him,” Mayor Brandon Johnson told CBS News Chicago about the influence of the man he called a friend and mentor, following news of the Rev. Jackson’s death last week at the age of 84. In a tribute during this week’s Chicago City Council meeting, the mayor who recalled marching with the Rev. Jackson across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama to commemorate “Bloody Sunday” told aldermen that “his wisdom and guidance had a profound impact on me and my family. Our city owes Rev. Jackson a debt of gratitude.” Mayor Johnson ordered flags in Chicago to fly at half-staff, and black and purple bunting now hangs over the LaSalle Street entrance to City Hall in tribute to the Rev. Jackson.
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly LGBTQ+ person to serve as the city’s chief executive, reflected on her first meeting with the Rev. Jackson in 2015 during a visit to the Rainbow/PUSH offices on the South side. “He could not have been more generous or more welcoming,” she told me this week, “and that was really the basis of our relationship from that moment forward.” Her tribute on social media includes an image of the two of them walking hand in hand away from the camera, and she also noted his efforts to register new voters during his runs for President and after. “It was something that I studied for sure and that I admired, and took with me on my own journey.”
But it’s in the statement from another former Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, that one gets a sense of the Rev. Jackson’s frequent role as change agent in a city and political establishment famously reluctant to change. The two men had crossed paths often over the past 30 years during Emanuel’s service as adviser to former President Bill Clinton, Congressman for Chicago’s North side, Chief of Staff in the Obama White House and finally Chicago mayor.
“I never knew Jesse to walk into a room simply to be welcomed,” Emanuel wrote on social media. “He walked in to make sure others would be welcomed after him.” The longtime strategist who earned and has embraced his reputation as a hard-nosed political pugilist noted that his relationship with the civil rights icon was built on “the push and pull of someone who never let power get too comfortable, who asked the hard questions, demanded the honest answers, and reminded those of us in positions of responsibility exactly who we were supposed to be serving.”
Emanuel said the Rev. Jackson shaped history and made a difference, and his tribute’s closing words described … not necessarily friendship, per se, but respect: “Those of us lucky enough to have been challenged by him, pushed by him, and yes, sometimes frustrated by him, are better for it. He will be deeply missed but never forgotten.”