Rev Jesse Jackson: Still impatient for change

Despite being 72, Civil Rights icon, Rev Jesse Jackson has no intention of slowing up. On the 43rd Annual Rainbow Push Conference in his home town of Chicago, Illinois, Jackson and his team hosted a five-day international conference for two thousand delegates from more than 20 different countries.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘A Quest for Equality and Peace’.

I’ve known Rev Jackson since an introduction by another Civil Rights veteran Joe Beasley- who was also in attendance this week, - in 2002 at the State of the Black World Conference, in Atlanta, Georgia. What I noticed then as I’ve observed now is that Rev Jesse Jackson is still passionate and impatient about changing the world, but equally he has more energy than men and women half his age.

Over the five days, Jackson would be at each morning’s 6.30 am planning meetings and nearly the last to go after the evenings informal hotel lounge discussions - 9pm-11pm which usually preceded the 800 plus evening dinner events.

In between 6.30 am and 11pm Rev Jackson would pop into as many seminars as he possibly could, meet and greet the sponsors of the 80 tables, and always be accommodating for those who’d like their picture taken with a living legend.

But if Jackson is the hard working visionary, he has a small but highly skilled team who help him realize that vision. Chief among them is James Gomez. Gambian-born, teetotaller, fanatic Chelsea supporter, Gomez would have handpicked the hundred or so speakers, helped organize their flights and made sure they were there where they were supposed to be when their slot was ready.

Then there is Butch Wing, A veteran campaigner on Jackson’s two Presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. Wing tells a great story on how he took Jackson to China town in San Francisco. He recalls the hundreds who came out that day could barely speak English, but they had learnt three crucial words which were sweeping across the US at that time: ‘Run Jesse Run’. Today Wing is a one man communication powerhouse, writing speeches, press releases, translating research data and lobbying senior officials.

Women also write large within team Jackson, and Rev Janette Wilson runs a tight ship at Chicago HQ. From there she stewards a team of 50 volunteers. There are few people who tell Rev Jackson what to do, but if the Convention is to deliver the monster lunches, dinners, and the 40 or so breakout sessions, Rev Jackson has to follow team orders as laid out by Rev Wilson.

Jackson’s family too were always there for support and unity.

There were many highlights over the four days that I attended: The indomitable Congresswoman Maxine Walters opening conference speech raised the roof with her insight and oratory; the Scholarship dinner which showcased young Black talent and saw these young men and women receive their prizes from one of the most powerful men at Google - David Drummand, Senior Vice President, and chief legal officer.

The session that I was fortunate to play a role in - 'The Global Human Rights Forum’, created a buzz around the conference. Not least because when the Brazilian delegate Dr Danielle Gomes informed the packed room that it was her country, Brazil which had the 2nd highest population of Africans in the world.

"55% of Brazilians describe themselves as Black,"

she told the audience with pride and passion. But she added:

You’d never guess that looking at the World Cup Brazilian fans."

Brazil, is emerging as a super power of Latin America, but for most Black people extreme poverty is a daily reality. But things are changing and fast. In the past Brazil had over eighty descriptions for being non white. White people had just the one. Now, has Gomes puts it, ' people like me with my lighter skin, and my proud Afro hair, call ourselves Black'. That’s the new political consciousness that is sweeping Brazil and other parts of Latin America.’

Namala Paul Divakar, a Human Rights expert from India, was there to talk about the India’s cast system and the way it locks out the Dalits, who by no coincidence just happen to be the darkest people in Asia. He said:

Rev Jesse Jackson is the most prominent African American to talk about our plight on a global stage."

I left before the conference officially ended. But in those four days I heard and was part of conversations on gender, hip hop, business recruitment, and the role of the media, the digital divide, African investment forum, education, prison reform, health care, and much more.

Of course here in the UK we expect the Americans to do things on a large scale. That’s the American way, but being there I also realised about how important the Black UK’s role is within this global conversation. The former BBC correspondence professor Kurt Barling was headhunted by Rev Jackson to moderate the big international forum debate and participate in the media discussion.

But even more than that British history and the Black British struggle in particular was repeatedly referenced as a model for other Black struggles in European countries, and increasingly Africa and Latin America. Here in the UK we beat ourselves up for not making as much progress as let's say the USA, but around the world we are admired by many.

I informed audiences that here in the UK we are keen to share what we’ve done well and what we could do better. For example, I highlighted that many of the gains we have made over the last 50 years are being trampled over, in part lost during a time of austerity and anti-immigrant sentiment.

But in spite of our own challenges and seeing the same or similar struggles being played out in many places around the world, I felt fantastically connected: Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Australia, there were people who looked pretty much like me wanting to learn, collaborate, and be united as a global family.

With over 100 million people of African descent in Brazil alone, our Diaspora family is indeed huge.

Thank you team Rev Jesse Jackson for this family reunion in Chicago, Illinois. Those family ties now have to be nurtured and strengthened. But we’ve made a great start simply by reiterating that we are a global family .

Simon Woolley