On the night of Aug. 20, during the Democratic National Convention, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) pushed his 82 year old father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, onto the stage of the United Center in Chicago.
In the summer of 1984, Congressman Jackson was only 18 and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, was 19, when Rev. Jackson stood on the stage at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco after garnering 3.5 million votes.
“I just want young America to do me one favor… Exercise the right to dream,” said Rev. Jackson on July 18, 1984, during his address at that year’s Democratic National Convention.
While Walter Mondale won the Democratic nomination that year and George Bush would win the White House, Jackson won the hearts of a new generation of progressives that became part of the Rainbow Coalition.
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition was formed in 1996 by Rev. Jackson through the merging of two organizations he founded in 1971 and 1984: People United to Serve Humanity (PUSH), and the Rainbow Coalition, respectively.
On Tuesday night, Jackson looked across the United Center at the DNC and later told The Informer: “I saw the fulfillment of the Rainbow: Red, Yellow, Black and White.”
While Jackson didn’t speak during this year’s convention, he raised his hands in victory, flanked by his youngest son Yusef Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
As in 1984, this year’s convention concluded with Democrats leaving Chicago with a new sense of activism.
From Oprah Winfrey who declared, “We are not going back,” to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz- Harris’ running mate, saying the campaign is in the fourth quarter and “we are on offense,” the convention offered four days of inspirational speakers.
Jackson said his candidacies in 1984 and in 1988 planted seeds of hope and seeing and greeting people in Chicago this week proved, “that we changed people’s minds for what is possible.”
The Rev. Grainger Browning, pastor of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington, Maryland, emphasized Jackson’s long legacy.
“No one has been more underestimated and under appreciated in terms of their role in American politics than Rev. Jackson,” Browning, a national board member of Rainbow PUSH Coalition, told The Informer. “In 1984 coming in with no money and coming in third, and in 1988, he almost won… He was the front runner going into the final primary in New York.”
During the 1984 and 1988 conventions, Jackson won several states and thousands of delegates and during the next four decades, the Congressional Black Caucus would expand its ranks with those who started in the Rainbow Coalition.
From DNC Committee Chair Minyon Moore to Vice-President Haris, Jackson said many leading Democrats were all members of the Rainbow Coalition.
The four-day convention was a political family reunion that brought together civil rights icons, many of whom were inspired by Jackson’s leadership.
“I have been with Rev. Jackson for 40 years, when I was just a teenager during his first campaign in 1984, and this is the fruit of his labor and the fruit of what he built,” said the Rev. Mark Thompson, a longtime activist, media personality and the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s (NNPA) Global Digital Transformation Director. “Rev. Jackson changed the Democratic Party so that we can have the first Black woman nominee in this country.”
