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How Jesse Invented Himself
In Memphis
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1-19-01
So it seems that Jesse Jackson was the perfect person to counsel President
Clinton about infidelity.
As the saying goes, the man knows whereof he speaks.
Are you really surprised that Jesse has a secret mistress and love child?
You shouldn't be. Jesse is the quintessential lovable rogue - although
"lovable" might be a stretch. Jackson (c.), Martin Luther King and Ralph
Abernathy (r.) the day before King's assassination
Like many - both black and white - I have been mesmerized by Jackson for
decades. Modesty is a virtue with which he has never been familiar.
I first heard Jesse speak at the National Black Political Convention in
Gary, Ind., in 1972. Sporting a huge Afro and colorful dashiki, Jackson
stirred the juices, an American Fidel who enchanted his audience for hours
as the venom flowed fast and furious. "The idea of looking for racial
equality [in America] is a farce," he thundered to deafening applause.
Jesse blew me away - and then I got to know him.
During his run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, I revisited
the story that formed the backbone of the Jackson legend - that immediately
after the assassination in Memphis in 1968, Jesse had cradled Martin Luther
King in his arms.
Building that story helped Jesse assume Martin's mantle - but like much
about Jackson, that story was a lie. Jesse Jackson with his wife Jackie at
the 1998 Democratic National Convention
Hosea Williams, who had been a King assistant, was only one of several
people, including former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who told me what really
happened on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on that horrific day:
"Right after the shooting, Jesse shouted to us all not to talk to the
press," Williams said. "But then I saw him telling reporters, 'Yes, I was
the last man in the world King spoke to.' He said he held King in his arms.
I knew he was lying - Ralph Abernathy was the one who held 'Doc.'"
"I don't know for sure why Jesse says what he says," Abernathy told me in
1987. "He's always had this deep need to project a special closeness to
whatever seemed holy."
While the rest of King's stunned aides stayed close in Memphis, Jesse flew
home to Chicago. The next morning, wearing a turtleneck that he said was
stained with King's blood, Jackson turned up on the "Today" show, retelling
his tall tale.
When I confronted Jesse with the testimony of King's other associates, he
dodged artfully. "Peter was with Jesus physically," Jackson said, reaching
for a biblical metaphor that avoided a direct answer. "But Paul interpreted
Jesus better than Peter did. Peter and them got jealous of Paul and have
been trying to ax him out ever since."
The King story is only one of many Jackson embellishments. For years, he
movingly recounted his impoverished upbringing to anyone willing to listen.
"I used to run bootleg liquor and buy hot clothes," Jackson told television
interviewers. "I had to steal to survive." His stepfather, he said, was a
janitor, his mother a maid.
In fact, Jackson's stepfather was a postal worker, his mother a beautician.
(Upset by his stepson's fabrication, a proud Charles Jackson told Barbara
Reynolds, for her book on Jesse, "We never begged for a dime, and my family
never went hungry a day in their lives.")
Ever since King's death, no other African-American has come close to
supplanting Jackson in the role he most relishes: In private, Jackson
considers himself the President of Black America.
As he travels the nation, urging the downtrodden to pull themselves up from
poverty - one of many admirable exhortations - Jesse still asks his
audiences to repeat after him: "I am somebody."
Well, Jesse is certainly somebody. He's a world-class piece of work, and it
now seems he's been comfortably living his biggest lie for some time.
Jesse Jackson is more than somebody. He is two bodies.
How Jesse Invented Himself In Memphis (2).url
