You Have Run Your Race, Jesse

Armstrong Williams
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:25:06 -0800
Opinion

The passing of Jesse Jackson marks the end of a turbulent and transformative era in American politics. For more than five decades, he stood at the intersection of protest and power, unapologetic in his focus on race, relentless in his pursuit of equity, and unafraid to confront America's deepest contradictions.

The era that shaped him defined him. Jackson came of age in the segregated South, forged in the crucible of the civil rights movement under the moral thunder of Martin Luther King Jr. That generation did not believe in incremental whispers; it believed in confrontation. Jackson carried that urgency into every arena he entered. He was not crafted in a time of comfort. He was born into a time of fire.

From my youth into adulthood, he was always accessible to me for interviews and conversations. As his national stature grew, he never withdrew behind layers of insulation. He understood that influence required engagement. He answered calls. He showed up. He stayed in the arena.
Updated: Wed Feb 18, 2026

The passing of Jesse Jackson marks the end of a turbulent and transformative era in American politics. For more than five decades, he stood at the intersection of protest and power, unapologetic in his focus on race, relentless in his pursuit of equity, and unafraid to confront America's deepest contradictions.

The era that shaped him defined him. Jackson came of age in the segregated South, forged in the crucible of the civil rights movement under the moral thunder of Martin Luther King Jr. That generation did not believe in incremental whispers; it believed in confrontation. Jackson carried that urgency into every arena he entered. He was not crafted in a time of comfort. He was born into a time of fire.

From my youth into adulthood, he was always accessible to me for interviews and conversations. As his national stature grew, he never withdrew behind layers of insulation. He understood that influence required engagement. He answered calls. He showed up. He stayed in the arena.

Through Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition, Jackson built multiracial alliances rooted in economic justice and political empowerment. He believed coalition politics, not fragmentation, was the path to durable change. His presidential campaigns in 1984 and '88 were watershed moments. Critics dismissed them as symbolic. They were strategic and consequential. Jackson expanded the Democratic electorate, registered millions of new voters, and made a reality what once seemed impossible: a Black candidate competing seriously for the presidency of the United States.

Long before 2008, he made a Black presidency conceivable and, in many respects, probable. The path that led to Barack Obama was widened by Jackson's audacity and infrastructure-building. Likewise, the electoral strength and growing influence of members of the Congressional Black Caucus owe something to the psychological barrier he shattered and the political base he mobilized. He did not simply run for office; he recalibrated expectations.

Jackson was also an unapologetic champion of affirmative action and economic inclusion. Decades before diversity, equity and inclusion became a cultural battleground, he was pressing corporations and institutions to open doors long closed to minorities. He confronted executives directly, demanding hiring commitments, supplier diversity and economic participation. Critics accused him of shaking down corporations. Supporters argued he was applying moral leverage to institutions that had benefited from exclusion. Either way, he forced boardrooms to respond.

He was intensely ambitious. That ambition propelled him to national prominence and sustained him through controversy. Jackson's life was marked by contradiction. He could be prophetic and profane, soaring in moral rhetoric while grappling with personal failings. His adultery, which led to children outside his marriage, wounded his credibility and complicated his public image. Yet those imperfections made him, for many, a more human and relatable figure. He was not carved from marble. He was shaped by struggle, ego, faith, frailty and resilience.

At the height of his influence, he wielded real power. He negotiated for the release of American hostages and inserted himself into international conflicts when official diplomacy stalled. Foreign leaders took his calls. Domestic political leaders could not ignore him. When injustice erupted on picket lines, in impoverished communities, in moments of racial tension, Jackson appeared. He insisted on visibility for the marginalized and accountability for the powerful.

He understood the moral argument he was advancing, even when he fell short of embodying it perfectly. History rarely offers flawless leaders. It offers consequential figures who reflect both the nobility and the contradictions of their time.

Jesse Jackson bent the arc of American politics toward inclusion loudly, imperfectly and indelibly. He expanded the electorate, redefined coalition-building and made the highest office in the land imaginable for those once excluded from consideration. As debates over race, affirmative action and representation intensify again, his imprint remains unmistakable.

He did not merely keep hope alive. He forced America to confront what hope demands: pressure, participation, persistence and the willingness to wrestle with our own imperfections while striving for something greater.