Pride and Prejudice

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Because of his color, and because he was never given a realistic chance of winning the nomination, Jackson has been treated differently from the other candidates. His rivals dealt with him gingerly, hoping not to alienate potential black support in the fall. The press concentrated on his vivid campaign style and rarely challenged his positions on the issues. He did not come under intense press scrutiny until his "Hymie" remark touched off conflicting charges of white and black racism. "Jesse hasn't injected racism into politics. His campaign has only brought to the surface things that were there long before," insists Ernest Green, one of Jackson's closest advisers. "To make that accusation is a classic case of blaming the victim for the crime."

Whoever was to blame, the flaring of the racial issue was like jiggling political nitroglycerin. Avoiding an explosion became as important to Democrats as choosing their presidential nominee. Their best hope was that the debate would be constructive and clear the air for the fall. Racism in the U.S. is less obvious than in the past but it has hardly gone away, and some thought that a candid discussion of the issue could strengthen the party. As Hodding Carter, an official in the Carter Administration and a crusader for civil rights as a Mississippi newspaper editor in the 1960s, wrote last week, "We ought to thank Mr. Jackson for running. Not because he should or shouldn't be President, but because his candidacy has helped to put race and things racial back in public view where they belong."

Getting the public's attention has been a Jackson trademark from the time he first worked for Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966. Over the years, as a preacher, a civil rights leader and now a politician, he has kept the same goal: instilling in blacks a sense of self-worth. The message he gave black teen-agers as he toured the country during the late '70s for his PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) for Excellence, Inc., program was identical to the one delivered by white middle-class parents to their teen-age children, except that it came from a black man wearing an Afro haircut and speaking in rhyme. "Down with dope! Up with hope!" Jackson would shout. "Less than your best is a sin! You are not a man because you can make a baby! It takes a man to raise one!" By the end of these exhortations, schoolchildren would line up to sign pledges that they would study for two hours every school night, without radio or TV.

In recent years, Jackson has stressed an additional message: that the path to black success was through the polling place. With the same evangelical style, he intoned to audiences, "There's a freedom train acoming. But you got to be registered to ride!" Then and there he would march listeners to the courthouse to sign voter rolls. Even Farrakhan, who has claimed that the American political process was too "corrupt" to deserve black votes, enrolled.