BABY FOOD | PROFILE

When Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee five years ago it seemed that all hope of non-violent change had died with him. For many black Americans the tactics of the militants,of Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, and the Panthers, seemed the only way forward. But today it appears that the eclipse of non-violence may only have been temporary. Violent tactics have achieved little for the millions of poor and oppressed black Americans. By contrast, King’s achievements have emerged as real and lasting. A sign of this change is the rise of King’s young protege, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has kept the flag of nonviolence flying throughout the difficult years since King’s death. JONATHAN POWER, who worked with Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson during the 1966 Chicago campaign,profiles the man who is now emerging as one of the most significant black leaders in America. Photo: Camera Press

Jackson joined King’s staff during the 1966 Chicago campaign. At the time he was 24, and a theolog ical student at the Chicago Theological Seminary. His organisational gifts, together with his charismatic speaking ability, quickly endeared him to King, who was only too glad to find someone of such quality who was prepared to stay on in Chicago and take on the responsibility for the follow-up of the campaign. Jackson decided to base his follow-up on Operation Breadbasket. Such were his organisational abilities - what a contrast to King - that it went rapidly from strength to strength. Given the disillusionment that was in the air after King’s defeat, and the growing popularity of Black Power, it was a remarkable feat of will.

Within two years Jackson had built up Operation Breadbasket to the point where it could take on America’s largest grocery supermarket complex - The Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A & P) - and win. A & P has one hundred stores in Chicago, and thirty-six are in black areas. The large majority of these thirty-six were picketted and boycotted for over six months. Trade dropped off drastically; in some stores almost to zero. A & P were forced to give way to Jackson’s demands. Before the boycott blacks made up only 60% of A & P’s ghetto labour force. After A & P had capitulated, the percentage rose to 90%. In addition to guaranteeing over 700 jobs for blacks, A & P also agreed to increase its marketing of black businessmen’s products, to use black-owned janitorial and vermin exterminating companies in its ghetto stores, to bank in black-owned banks, to advertise in black media, and to hire black construction firms to build its ghetto stores.

At Red Rooster - the rather smaller, $10 million annual sales, supermarket chain - a similar boycott produced even more dramatic results. The President of the firm stepped down to give his job to a black man. Even so, six weeks after they had capitulated, weekly sales in some of their stores were still down to $45,000 from $60,000. The general manager of A & P commented tb one newspaper; "Business never really comes back after a boycott."

Hunger Campaign
Given these dramatic victories, and the fear they instilled in other businesses, it was not surprising that Jackson’s negotiating strength markedly increased. Now, Breadbasket has expanded into fifteen cities and it has won over 5,000 jobs, bringing $40,000,000 in annual salaries to blacks.

The boycotting of stores has by no means produced Jackson’s only successes. In the spring of 1970 he initiated the

Illinois Hunger Campaign. Based on King’s Poor Peoples’ Campaign, Jackson welded together a diverse coalition of Chicago’s poor, including Appalachian whites, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans and Indians. Massive demonstrations were held in the State Capital, Springfield. The pressure was so great that a planned cut in the State Welfare Budget of 125 million was shelved. (Interestingly, in California and New York, where there were no such pressures, substantial welfare cuts went into effect at about the same time.) Jackson also won a bill to provide school lunches for all needy children in the State.

Black Expo
The most eye-catching of all Jackson’s economic activities has been his annual Black Expo. It runs for a week and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, mainly black. Its primary purpose is to boost black businesses and their products. Thousands of black-made products are exhibited - from dairy produce to sophisticated hospital equipment. (After all, the man who perfected the technique of blood transfusion was a black American.) Jackson is careful, however, not to let black capitalism run away with itself. He does not believe in capitalism if it means a widening gulf within the black community - much of the Expo is given over to workshops raising the key social questions of income distribution, housing, social services, etc. Political workshops are run by the stars of black politics: Carl Stokes, ex-mayor of Cleveland; Richard Hatcher, mayor of Gary; John Conyers, Michigan Congressman; Andrew Young, the first black southern Congressman since Reconstruction. Many of the top black entertainers come to the Expo and give their services free: Quincy Jones, Roberta Flack, Oscar Brown, Bill Cosby.

The Battle with Daley
At the 1971 Expo, much to everyone’s complete astonishment, Mayor Daley turned up on the opening day. Until then he had refused to have anything to do with Breadbasket. His unavoidable meetings with Jackson had always been cold and businesslike. Clearly, he now realizes Jackson’s strength and, astute politician that he is, is attempting to pay Jackson homage. He is unlikely, however, at this stage to pull the wool over the black community’s eyes. Daley’s attendance was a one-sided victory for Jackson.

While the economic campaigns have gone ahead, Jackson has kept up the pressure on the political front. He sees his main task as weakening Daley’s hold on the black population. In any other city a man of Jackson’s calibre would, by now, be controlling the direction of the black vote. In Chicago, despite his immense popularity - 5,000 pack his regular Saturday meeting every week, and hundreds of thousands listen to the live broadcast - it has been a slow uphill struggle. Daley’s machine, with its tightly controlled patronage system, means that for those who depend for their day-to-day survival on the forbearance of the welfare system, the police, the health inspectors, and so forth, there is little recourse but to Daley.

Victory at the Convention
Nevertheless Jackson has made some inroads. Since 1966 the black vote for Daley has begun to drop. In twelve Negro area wards of Chicago there were 100,000 less votes in the 1968 presidential election than there were in 1964. And a few black independent candidates are getting elected - people like Alderman Sammy Rayner.

Jackson’s most stunning success was the challenge of Mayor Daley’s delegation at the 1972 Democratic Convention at Miami Beach. Mayor Daley’s delegation lacked the correct proportions of young, women, and blacks demanded by the new party rules. Jackson, together with an antiDaley city alderman, William Singer, was determined to unseat Daley and replace him with a more representative delegation. Everyone at Miami Beach knew that Daley was in the wrong. But Humphrey and Muskie were not prepared to make Daley a foe. Even McGovern felt he needed Daley when it came down to it. So at 2.00 in the early morning of July 20th the struggle was fought out on the Convention floor.

McGovem’s forces manoevred for a compromise - half the delegation for Jackson and Singer, and half for Daley. The move floundered on Daley’s intransigence - he would not compromise. Left with an all or nothing position, and given the fact that McGovern and Jackson had worked closely together in the last few years - Jackson latterly playing an important part in weaning the blacks off Humphrey and on to McGovern - McGovern decided to dump Daley. And at 4.45 a.m. Daley was out. The next night Jackson and Singer gleefully found that they had the vote that put McGovern over the top for the Democratic presidential nomination. Jackson could go back, and did, to Chicago and tell the blacks that even Daley was not invincible. It was a great step forward.

Chicago’s Militants
Although Jackson has not had all the success he wants on the Chicago scene, it has not stopped him from emerging as the national charismatic spokesman for electoral participation. In this he has been helped enormously by the media coverage he has had, which in turn reflects some of the new thinking that has been going on within the media.

(An important editorial article in the Washington Post in March 1971 was one of the more open signs of this rethinking. It confessed to having failed to live up to its own standards of reporting. "In short, we find ourselves guilty," the Post editorialised, "of reinforcing misconceptions." It was referring in particular to its reporting of the Black Panthers. It has been constantly reporting a piece of Panther propaganda that ‘a total of 28 Panther members had died in clashes with the police since 1st January 1968, without giving the source of the information or trying to verifr the accuracy of the figure.’ The true figure was ten. The Post had fallen into the trap of allowing its drama-orientated news-gathering process to run far ahead of the truth of what was happening. The editorial reflected a general unease among many editors on the way they had magnified out of all proportion, over the last few years, the more dramatic side of Black Power politics.)

So today when Jackson talks about blacks voting for political organisations or takes on Daley, he gets reported. Although it is still easier for someone like Huey Newton to get column inches, the situation is changing rapidly.

Although many of Jackson’s programmes are not particularly radical, he often presents them wrapped in radical rhetoric and puts them within a long term framework of working towards a radical goal. Because of this, together with his youth and his preparedness to back the militants when the chips are down, he has an excellent working relationship with Chicago’s militant groups - particularly with the Black Panthers, the Young Lords (the

Mexican-American version of the Panthers) and the street gangs. Whenever they have been harassed by the police, or run short of funds, Jackson has rushed to their side and propagated their case. When the Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed by the police in December 1970, Jackson was instrumental in lining up the black community, almost to a man, on the Panthers’ side. He persuaded Ralph Abernathy to come to Chicago to take the funeral service. The Panthers who were on the run after the police raid, publicly gave themselves up at Jackson’s Saturday morning meeting - such was their esteem for him.

Backing the System?
Jackson’s single most important success in the last 12 months was his work in helping to oust States Attorney Edward Hanrahan last November. Hanrahan had been responsible for ordering the invasion of the Panther apartment. For the first time, large numbers of blacks in Chicago’s south and west side ghettos bucked Mayor Daley’s Democratic machine and split their tickets.

Nevertheless one often hears militant criticism of Jackson: ‘he’s just an ethnic politician’; ‘he’s cool at talking, but what’s he doin’ backing the system?’. This is fair comment, for if Jackson were to get lost in his black capitalism/black Expo world he would have little to offer the black masses.

Jackson counters that although he promotes black businessmen, he does so more to encourage black advancement and black pride rather than as an end in itself. Given the diffident personality of the American black, demonstrated time and time again by psychological research*(i) and the continuing legacy of slavery - it is difficult to criticise his attempts to use any means at hand to build self-confidence.

The harsh reality, Jackson argues, is that American blacks have a total income that is equivalent to the national income of Holland and Belgium combined, but 98% of that income is spent outside the black community*(ii). In terms of tangible real politics it is important to get blacks to have enough pride in themselves to at least trade with each other.

Christian Socialism
Jackson’s position could fairly be described as Christian socialist. When asked about his ideals he says he wants to see a non-profit-making, non-consumer orientated, non-materialistic society. And it is true that for every hour Jackson spends on promoting black capitalism he spends three on the needs of blacks who have no jobs or who are on welfare. An interview he gave in Playboy sharply points up his total outlook.

Playboy: Can blacks change them?

Jackson: This is the challenge of Operation Breadbasket. The businessmen we help, for example, are discouraged from getting rich and leaving the ghetto. We develop profit-sharing; we try to make it our company as much as the owner’s. We encourage participatory democracy.

Playboy: Can Breadbasket help blacks outside the ghetto as well as within it?

Jackson: Yes. Let me give you an example of how it can work - a case of real soul power, where blacks had the integrity to stick out a crisis and aid one another over thousands of miles. When the most recent Voting Rights Bill was passed, black Alabama farmers found that they weren’t able to find markets for their products any more. Whites were retaliating for their new political power. On top of that, George Wallace prevented them from borrowing money, so they couldn’t expand economically, because of the combined pressure of racism and capitalism. There were 1,500 of them - all farming small plots. Instead of quitting, they formed the Southwest Alabama Farmers’ Co-operative. They planted and harvested their crops and then brought them to Chicago. We at Breadbasket then went to the supermarkets in the ghetto and told the owners that they would either put the brothers’ products on the shelves or face boycotts. They accepted the produce. The brothers in Alabama could farm there and have an open outlet in Chicago. We were able to do this out of a sense of ‘peoplehood’. That’s my kind of black nationalism - blacks helping one another on a national scale.

Playboy: Isn’t it one of the great fears of Southern whites that blacks - who outnumber them - will usurp their place in society if they ever win enough economic and political power?

Jackson: The problem here is that the poor white and the poor black have mutual fear. Poor blacks fear that if poor whites aren’t eliminated, they won’t be able to eat, and the poor whites feel just the same way in reverse. The historical difference is that poor whites in the South have controlled the police and the military and have thereby maintained power over the blacks. We in the Poor Peoples’ Campaign believe that the basic anxiety of whites is an irrational fear of extermination - a fear that can be removed with a guaranteed income, with guaranteed medical care and education. Dr. King was firm in his resolve that black power must be secondary to peoples’ power. When the economic base of all the people is raised, racism will decline. As the Poor Peoples’ Campaign gets stronger, racism will lose its hold on the consciousness of the white poor. *

*(i) See especially the writings of Kenneth Clark.

*(ii) Senator Charles Percy, "Building the New America" at the American Management Association briefing session: "Developing Practicql Programs for Enterprise in the Ghetto: The New Capitalism ", New York, December 18, 1968.

The Gun and The Alley
Perhaps what makes Jackson ultimately acceptable to the militants is his refusal to condemn their tactics. Obviously he does not go along with much of what they do, but he argues that it is important not to divide the ‘movement’. He realises, no doubt, that he could well be the loser if bitter internecine warfare broke out. One of Jackson’s compromises that would not endear him to Dr. King is his acceptance of violence in self-defence. Admittedly, it is in muted form, as the interview below shows, but nevertheless it is a strong break with the King tradition. Privately Jackson argues that it is necessary, given the mood of black America.

WHITE AMERICA MUST UNDERSTAND THAT
MEN WILL STEAL BEFORE THEY STARVE.

Jackson: Yes. Non-violence does not demand that one develop an absolute, universal commitment to pacifism. That old notion of being in a dark alley and having a man step out with a gun does not apply.
Of course, I am going to do whatever I must to get rid of the man and his gun. I preach non-violence because it’s the better alternative. In that alley, there is no alternative. But peace is the alternative to war, and non-violence should be seen as the antidote to violence, not simply as its opposite. Non-violence is more concerned with saving life than with saving face. It is the most sensible way to combat white society’s military oppression of blacks.

Playboy: Do you think white America is actually waging war on black America?

Jackson: Yes, it’s a war. Sometimes it’s waged by a white army in full military gear, as any weapons count among special riot police would show. But it’s also a war of attrition, a siege, in which the violence takes other forms. To me, violence is starving a child, or maintaining a mother on insufficient welfare. Violence is going to school 12 years and getting five years worth of education. Violence is 30,000,000 hungry in the most abundant nation on earth. White America must understand that men will steal before they starve, that if there is a choice of a man’s living or dying, he will chose to live, even if it means other men die. These are human reactions, and we cannot assume that black people are going to be anything less than human.

Playboy: Is there a point at which you feel violence would be justified?

Jackson: If I saw that there was no other way for us to be liberated, yes.*

* Interview in Playboy, November 1969.

The Heir to King?
Now the Panthers in Chicago have lost the support they once had, and the other militant groups have nothing to show for their activities but tape-recordings of their rhetoric, Jackson’s position seems even stronger.

Increasingly the mood in the black community is gravitating towards leaders who produce tangible results. Certainly many blacks would like to destroy the system they are forced to live in, and want to hear spokesmen who say just what they feel. But the last three years have been a hard lesson in the harsh realities of the American political structure. It cannot be taken by the storm of an embittered minority.

Jackson’s principal weakness is his own personality - his apparently insatiable desire for personal attention, and his inability to work closely with colleagues of high ability. The strongest minded and most intellectually competent of his staff have left in despair. Consequently, his second-tier leadership is too weak and ill-equipped to be really effective underpinners of Jackson’s work. Tragically this means that his campaigning can only go so far before it comes up against the limitations of his own time and energy. In this respect Jackson could not be more different from King. King had a close entourage of high-powered assistants. Much of the important work was left to them. This gave him great flexibility and mobility. It enabled him to work as a national leader, while at the same time he had strong local bases. The tragedy is that unless Jackson can come to grips with this weakness, black America may yet find itself in a leadership wilderness. Jesse Jackson could be the heir to Martin Luther King, and inherit the great potential for nationwide non-violent leadership that now exists - or he could be yet another shooting star across the night that will burn brightly for a short time, but will soon be forgotten in the darkness that is left behind.

* Playboy, op. cit.