Thunder in America: the improbable campaign of Jesse Jackson. - book reviews

Washington Monthly, Feb, 1987 by Taylor Branch

This is a bigot's dream--deepseated hatred betweenminorities. On the other hand, the book presents some evidence that black and Jewish leaders are inciting rather than accommodating mass hatred, in the manner of classical demagogues, and are much more hostile toward each other than are their respective followers, who tend to look on in puzzled sadness. Ties between blacks and Jews rest on too much history and common sense to be so easily discarded. It is no accident that the vast majority of American black churches take their names from the Old Testament--Mt. Zion, Ebenezer, Mt. Moriah, and so on. Not only were the yarns of the Old Testament more accessible to those denied literacy, as was the quest of Moses riveting to a people in slavery, but the political, theocratic role of Moses was adopted by black preachers in a society that permitted no black institution of authority other than the church. The Old Testament helps explain why the first black presidential candidate was a preacher instead of a banker. The music of the spirituals is largely Old Testament music, and such things still run deep.

Practically speaking, the factors thattransformed that cultural tie into a political alliance are still valid today. Both blacks and Jews remain minorities acutely sensitive to the historical cycles of persecution. In the last two centuries they placed their hopes in alliances with people of good will and in appeals to universal standards of justice. This produced the Jewish utopianism that lay at the intellectual foundations of the political left all over the world, and it led to the civil rights movement. What has changed in the last twenty years--since Israel's Six Day War and the rise of black power--is that the leaders have created an illusionary world of surly self-sufficiency, competing among themselves in resentment against the need for alliances. Many old Jewish leftists have turned into neo-conservatives. They identify with the powerful rather than the oppressed, even though it is the powerful who have hurled down the historical repressions of Jews. The Jewish utopian tradition has virtually vanished in American thought, such that candidate Jesse Jackson found himself leading not only blacks but an atrophied political left, which he optimistically called the Rainbow Coalition.

Jackson allowed race to swallow up his effortto revive an American left as an alternative to the sagging center. He buried dollops of fresh Rainbow Coalition in a thousand choruses of "Our time has come.' Perhaps this was inevitable, as the twin burdens of race and ideology worked against each other. To devise and hold steadfastly to a political program based on universal standards touching the legitimate aspirations of all peoples would have required not only genius in Jackson, but also superhuman patience. It might well have gained him nothing but a tepid reception among blacks. Cornered, he settled for a campaign to harvest the available acclaim. His course mirrors the insularism of black politicians who have little to offer their constituencies beyond vicarious participation in their own success as leaders, and of Jewish leaders who expect short, victorious wars. Long before Jesse Helms, leaders short on vision and substance learned to make good use of devils.