The Reverend Jesse Jackson, an influential leader in civil rights, politics, and American life, passed away this month at the age of 84. (His political ambitions included running for president twice, and you can find buttons from his campaigns in the HKS Library's political buttons collection.)
Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell William Brooks, a former president and CEO of the NAACP, a civil rights attorney, and an ordained minister himself, spoke about the lessons he took from Jackson. Brooks is the Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and a professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice at HKS. Below are excerpts from our conversation with Brooks reflecting on Jackson’s life and legacy.
On not waiting to be “anointed” into leadership
It wasn’t like [Jackson] was a creature of the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and had some leadership certificate that said, “You can now lead.”
Here’s someone who essentially inserted himself into history. Based upon his example, he would say to this generation of activists and advocates and would-be leaders, “don’t wait for somebody to anoint you.” And I’m sure he would say this to young people: “Don't wait for older people to give you permission to lead.”
He was certainly mentored by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentored by other civil rights leaders. But to be clear, he took the initiative...Somebody comes from Greenville, South Carolina, who is the child of what they used to call an “unwed mother,” who goes to the University of Illinois on an athletic scholarship, wants to get involved in civil rights, transfers to an HBCU, to North Carolina A & T, and then literally walks into history.
Now, any rational person would say, “No, you should finish seminary, you should finish graduate school, you should get experience, you should learn. To run for president, you need a national network, you need a certain number of PACs behind you.”
If you look at his career, he did none of that, right?
He was somebody who thought, “look, there’s something to do—and I need to do it.”
And so I would hope that people would extract that from his life and not subscribe to this great man, great woman, great person theory of history, that only those who've been dubbed to be great can serve.
On what that legacy means for students at the Kennedy School
Sometimes at the Kennedy School, what I see are people who are incredibly disciplined in terms of developing their potential. Sometimes they are unduly cautious about what it takes to lead. And the reality is you can’t wait for the Kennedy School to anoint you, right? We don't have that authority. And you can’t wait for anybody in Congress to anoint you. You can’t wait for any social justice leaders to anoint you. You literally have to be anointed by your own sense of purpose, your own sense of calling.
On a lesser-known moment of Jackson’s commitment to justice
Reverend Jackson gave a sermon in support of LGBTQ equality at Professor Brooks’ hometown church. Brooks recalls hearing it as a recent college graduate, preparing to become a minister himself.
As someone who was looking forward to going to seminary, looking forward to being a minister, but not being entirely clear of the kind of minister I wanted to be, it was mind blowing for me to hear Reverend Jackson…before marriage equality, before the acronym LGBTQ was something well known to many Americans—to have him in a relatively conservative town, conservative church…to have him speak about gay rights in terms of human dignity, in terms of love, in terms of justice.
And to do so not as a politician telling the people how they should think, but as a minister of the gospel, talking to people in terms of the values they already hold, in terms of the biblical stories that they already knew, and having that resonate deeply.
It said to me as an aspiring minister and leader, “think about the canon of stories and histories and traditions that you have, and speak to people from that.” In other words, “don’t lecture people, don’t talk down to people, speak from your own tradition. Speak with the assumption that people have good intentions and that they’re morally aspirational and that they want to do the right thing.”
On watching Jackson as a father
Jackson asked Brooks to speak at an event hosted by his civil economics organization, Operation PUSH, in Chicago. Jackson’s daughter, Santita, who is a professional singer, came on stage to sing just before Brooks spoke.
The thing is, I don’t remember what she sang or what she spoke, but what I remembered was how [Jackson] looked at his daughter.
He’s looking at his daughter as not civil rights leader, not just as a professional, but it was like that proud father look. And I just hadn’t seen him like that. I’m used to seeing him where he’s a center of attention, not him enjoying his daughter being the center of attention. And that was a kind of window into his character.
Quite often, people think of him as being very self-confident and having a healthy sense of himself and his leadership. And frankly, most social justice leaders, many of them are not lacking in ego. But that’s not what I saw. What I saw was somebody who really cared about his family and really enjoyed being in the presence of his children.
On Jackson’s “standard for the spoken word”
Reverend Jackson was one of those people who set a standard for the spoken word that I’ve never forgotten...being rhetorically deft and clever, which is often what we see in graduate school, but being rhetorically powerful, prophetically powerful. And by powerful, I don’t mean like convincing somebody to invest in your business. That’s good, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Powerful in the sense of, when you speak, you speak with authority. And the reason you speak with authority is because you’re standing in a certain truth. And you’re speaking to move people and you’re unapologetic about that.
And sometimes we dichotomize reason and emotion in places like the Kennedy School, but it’s important because, at the end of the day, people think and feel—and those two are co-mingled. You’re not a great leader if you don’t understand that. He inspired me to try to be a better speaker, a better preacher.
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Photographs by Martha Stewart