JACKSON AND EDI
HISTORY CONTEXT
A LACK
y P ul Roc II
OTHER BLACK
PROGRESSIVES WERE
SLANDERED·TOO
What explains the Media's un
ceasing hostility to Jackson's
travels? History -Media history
and Black history- give us a clue.
What is happening to Jesse Jackson
in the U.S. Media (including some
left Periodicals) is nothing new.
The white Press has always
treated foreign affairs, especially
the affairs of developing nations, as
off-limits to progressive Black
leaders. Look back a minute at other
African-Americans who took prin
cipled stands on international af
fairs.
In 1945, W.E.B. Dubois, the
great scholar and historian, traveled
to the Soviet Union, to Cnina and to
Europe.
He presided over the 5th Pan
African Congress in Manchester,
England. Dubois supported
desegregation in the U.S., and he
called for complete de-colonization
of Africa and the Third World.
Wherever he traveled abroad, he
was well-received.
But when Dubois returned home
from Europe, he faced a hostile
pres. In the McCarthy era, when
the Democratic Party shifted to the
right and purged New Dealers and
progre ives, the State D partment
revoked Duboi ' passport. Even
near the end of his brilliant life, the
U.S. government stopped Dubois
from attending the celebration of
Ghana' historic indenpendence.
LIKE HIS COMRADE,
W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson al 0
faced a sneering Pre when he
traveled abroad. Paul Robeson was
brilliant actor, inger and civil
rights activist.
In the 19405, Robeson played a
key role in calling attention to the
danger of fasci m in Europe. He
campaigned for FOR, and he up
ported Roosevelt' good-neighbor
policy. After the World War,
Robe on championed the principle
of elf-determination of all peoples.
111 t' when the Pr got mali
cious.
id "Any tim Bl
ble to be controlled by the
immedi ly begi to label B
people irrespo ible. They put I d
up there. new bees
the crea."
Whenever Reverend J
independent of the corpora
faU into a panic. When J c n won the rei
Robert Goodman (Reagan lling arms to Iran),
D n Rather of CBS called the Syrian visit .. If
pointed mi ion," nd" grandstanding ego trip."
After J c on brought home 48 prisone from
Cuba, ABC' Ba ra Walters (w 0 built her own
glitzy reer on 1979 interview with Fidel tro,
mokin hi cig rs and riding in his jeep), q tioned
Jackson' patriotism.
J ckson' trip to Iraq, where he rescued over 400
French, Engl h nd American ho tage , w a h�ge
UC<:eSS, but media coverage was nasty and h tile.
The NewYor Tim calledJ cksona "self-appointed
envoy." The Baltimore Sun attac ed Jackson for car
rying a white child in hi arms. (It is all right forwhi
liberals to carry Black children, but not the other way
around.)
REV. JACKSON visited more cities, walked
through more hamlets and refugee camps, rescued
more h tages, than any living American leader. In
1979, when the evil of apartheid were hardly men
tioned in the U.S. Pre , Jackson traveled to South
Africa.
In heavy rain aDd mud, thousands upon thousands
of South Africans came to hear him peak at the.
cross ds squatters camp at the edge of Capetown.
As Jackson s pped onto the rough-hewn platform, a
huge po ter tood behind him:
"WELCOME REVEREND JESSE
JACKSON, DISTINGUISHED
SON OF MOTHER AFRICA." As
if in reciprocity, J ckson reiterated
the credo of all progressives: "We
must measure human rights by one
yardstick and make room for
everybody in the human family."
When Jackson travels to Europe,
Latin Ameri or Africa, he is wel
comed and cheered by tudents,
peasants and workers. It i only
when he returns to his homeland
that he is greeted by cynical sneers
by white pundits of the Media. The
contrast between his popularity and
Media derision needs to be ex-
plained.
It is in the con xt of Black hi tory that Jacbon'.
world trave can be understood. It is fairly easy to
100 b and defend P ul Robeson, Dubo , Malcolm
X and Dr. King ex post eto.
It is harder, though DO I important, to defend our
progressive, mortal leaders ben they are alive. And
it J ckson's achievemen , eot so-called per
sonal idiosyncrasies, that generate fear and derision in
the U.S. Media.
Jackson's ideological clarity, his ability 10 dra
clear demarcations between real democracy and Im
perialism, the appeal of his progressive agenda, un
matched for detail Dd thoroughness, his unsurp
ability to educate aDd inspire, his theme of empower
ment, the very ence of freedom- these are the
virtues that send imperial joumalis into panic and
loathing. .
In the Media caricature, everything Jac on does
i "self-appointed." Rev. J ckson, however, is DOt
some lone i�ividual eting by himself in biJ own
behalf. The African National Congress (ANC), Con
gregational Clurches of South Africa,
Operation PUSH, the Rainbow Coati
tion- organizations legitimate as
General Electric, the arms merchant
that sends Tom Brokaw abroad- are
just a few of the progressive nd
humanitarian groups that sponsor
Jackson'sjourneys.
o ere full of
nti-Ro on ti d, nide nd cynical in tone
the yndicated columns of George Will today. Colum-
nist George So 01 y wrote t "P ul Ro n'
numerou indecencie ould ever have been
tolera d in white m n." W tbroo Pegler, the P t
Bu han n of the 195 ,wrote: "Paul Robeson w
poiled by years of flattery nd . al toleration by
white deb uchers ... "
In its race-baiting nd red-b lung t c , th Pre
helped create a climate for the ri e of McCarthyi m.
The Ho e Un-American Activities Committee b c -
ed by the P , tried to ilence Robeson. His p port
was revo ed, he w locked out of concert hall and
kept off U.S. radio and TV.
Paul Ro on w a dynamic, ertive figure. His
powerful voice, his broad build, hi commanding
presence truck fear nd jealo y in white reporters.
But it w not Robe on' pe onality, nor his ego, that
incurred the wrath of the white Pre . It was
Robeson's progre ive vi ion, his upport �or the
democratic rights of all people , that made him the
Medi pariah.
In a legal brief in February 1952, the State Depart
ment openly explained its travel ban on Robeson:
"The pa sport was cancelled ... in view of the
appelant's frank admi ion that he h been for years
extremely active politically in behalf of the inde
pendence of the Colonial people of Africa."
Therein lay the real point of contention between
ttac ed Ro on' per-
cter, the ame P boycotted his boo
Hen: lSd, which ppeared in 1957. 0 white
commerci I new p per or magazine reviewed, or
even mentioned, Ro on' memoir and work of
phil phy. (So far th edi ve 0 fail� to
revie J c n' 0 enlightened boo : Straight
from th Heart, 1957 and Keep Hope Alive, 1989.)
Duboi him elf umm rized the irony of
Robe on' career: "He' ithout doubt today, a
person, the best-known American on earth. His voice
i kmwn in Europe, Asia and Africa, in the West
Indie and South America nd in the lands of the
. Children on the tree in Peking and Moscow,
Calcutta and Jakartagreet him aDd send him their love.
Only in his native land i he without honor and righ ."
DR. KING WAS ALSO VILUFIED
Dr. Martin Luther King did not escape Media
deri ion when he got too involved in international
Jfairs. After King took his anti-war po ition on the
foremost international ue of the times (the war in
Vietnam), all the Medi buzz-words, words that ap
pear regularly in Jackson coverage, were lobbed at
King -"simplistic," "egotistical," "radical."
The Press ned King for merely expressing his
opinion -an opinion backed by research and vindi-
PAUL ROBESON cuts a birthday cake with friends from th-e labor movement.
f
IT IS BECO obvio
the pundi who de J
trave are actually jealo of hia
popularity, his diplomadc skills,
expertise in world atfaira.
Challenging the white mooopoly
on the flow of informadon, redeflnlna: :.
Tarzan images of world affairs, estab
lishing networks and people-to-people
relationships are all part of the struggle
for empowerment for people of color.
When Dr. King returned from hi
travels to Africa and India --an ex
perience that broadenend his world
view and influenced his domestic
strategy- King wrote: "The Negro is
not so selfish as to stand isolated in
concern for his own dilemma, ignoring .
the ebb and flow of events around the
world." So too his disciple Jesse Jack
son write : "We are citizens of the
world. We must be concerned about
foreign policy. We came here on
foreign policy."
Jackson's world travels, SO
maligned in the Press, comprise a
thrilling episode in history of'
friendship and empowerment. On May
8, 1985, the fortieth anniversary of the .
end of World War n (when Reagan
was visiting the graves of Nazi SS
troop in Bitburg), Rev. Jackson
visited the Nazi death camps, ad
dressed the European P rliament, and
became the principle peaker at a mass
rally of 50,000 Europeans and West
Berlin. In his address, Jackson drew
connections between Bitburg and
Johannesburg, between the holocausts
of the past and the cist trends of our
time.
The French, the young Germans,
English men and women then heard
Jackson tell a tory most Europeans
never heard before: the story of the
liberation of two concentration camps
-Dachau and Buchenwald.
Near the end of the war, African
American oldters --&oldiers who
were fighting for rights they themsel-
ves did not po in their own.
homeland- were the first soldiers to
approach the Buchenwald camp.
Seeing Black troop in the distance,
inmates realized that the approach
ing units were not Nazi . Their
liberation was imminent, and they
cheered and wept.
Were it not for his European tour,
thi story of African-American
solidarity with their Jewish brethren
would till be unknown.
Rev. Jackson i performing a ser
vice unmatched by any contem
porary American figure, and mall
minds will never tifle hi mage
the onene of mankind.
Keep hope alive.
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