Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, activist, raconteur, and political candidate, finally gets a book worthy of his stature courtesy of CNN anchor Abby Phillip.
Focusing on his presidential runs in 1984 and, especially, 1988, Phillip highlights how Jackson built an unlikely coalition that showed how Black political power could be consolidated. His experience working under Martin Luther King; his organizing the SLCC’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago and beyond; and his roots in the deep South combined into two astonishingly impactful presidential campaigns. Appealing to the working people of urban enclaves like that of Chicago, young people on college campuses, and Black people across the South, he created the modern Democratic coalition—one that has been used by all major Democrats seeking national success from Obama to Biden to Harris.