Pages from the Archives
JESSE JACKSON, THE NAACP AND“ A GLORIOUS MARRIAGE”
Editor’ s note: One day, early in February 1993, I received a call from Jesse Jackson, who was then the“ shadow senator” for Washington, D. C. Saying“ we need to talk,” Jackson asked me to come quickly to his offi ce near the U. S. Capitol. I went there thinking Jackson, who twice unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’ s presidential nomination, was about to give me a big news scoop. When I arrived, Jackson ushered me into his offi ce and said,“ I’ m going to be the next executive director of the NAACP, and I want you to be my communications director.”
Jackson told me his selection to replace Benjamin Hooks, the retiring NAACP leader, would be announced shortly and he was pulling together a leadership team.“ This is going to be big,” combining the membership of the NAACP with the activism of the Rainbow Coalition, he told me, would transform the nation’ s civil rights struggle. It would be, he said,“ a glorious marriage.”
I declined his offer. I didn’ t want to give up my job as a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist to join his team. But Jackson’ s offer piqued my interest. Below, excerpted from a book that I am writing about the NAACP, is my account of the events that led to that moment. It is drawn from recorded interviews and offi cial documents obtained during years of research.
It is the story of how Jesse Jackson almost merged the activism of his National Rainbow Coalition with the NAACP, something that Julian Bond told The New York Times,“ would be a tremendous match.”
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