How Jesse Jackson puts family first; exciting book digs behind the scenes to reveal how the Rev. Jesse Jackson turned the screws to put his sons in positions of influence and to launch a family dynasty

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 1, 2002 | by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Busch was having problems with the River North distributorship, both financial and racial. African-American employees complained that they were being denied promotions and were threatening to call in Jackson and Operation PUSH if Busch didn't satisfy their demands. The Busch family apparently assumed Jackson could now launch a successful boycott, because of public support from President Clinton, and sought to defuse the situation by winning him over as an ally. They began with a $10,000 contribution to Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund in 1997, and campaign cash to Jesse Jr. But in the end they preferred marriage to seduction, and in 1998 began exploring ways to sell the troubled beer distributorship to Jackson's own sons. In the meantime, Jesse had turned up the heat.

In tandem with the Rev. James Meeks -- the powerful pastor of Salem Baptist Church, the fastest-growing black church in Chicago -- Jackson had been preaching antialcohol messages to the faithful in the heart of the River North Budweiser territory. "You had Jesse and Reverend Meeks saying the community needed to be dried up from alcohol at the same time Jesse's sons were looking to enter the beer business with Anheuser-Busch," recalls former Jackson associate Glen Bone III. "That type of hypocrisy didn't sit well in the community." But it worked like a charm with Augie Busch IV.

River North Sales & Service was one of the most lucrative distributorships Anheuser-Busch had to offer, and properties this good didn't come on the block very often. It included the United Center sports arena -- home of the Chicago Bulls and the Blackhawks -- and ran from Lake Michigan to Harlem Avenue, 76 blocks to the west. All together, the territory covered 62 square miles. "Counting the beer drinkers in that territory would be like counting the stars in the sky," Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass joked. "And the Jacksons have them as customers." Yusef was awarded 67 percent of River North and Jonathan given 23 percent, with the remaining 10 percent owned by Donald Niestrom Jr., a longtime Anheuser-Busch employee who ran the distributorship before the Jackson boys were awarded it on a silver platter. Neither son had any experience in marketing or management, let alone in the beer business. Yusef, who at 28 became president of River North, was working at the Chicago law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt, while Jonathan, then 32, was president of the Citizenship Education Fund, his father's fund-raising vehicle. Public records showed that the Jacksons used a $6.7 million loan from NationsBank to purchase River North assets -- including a warehouse and other buildings on Goose Island -- which had cost Anheuser-Busch $10.5 million to build just seven years earlier. The city of Chicago sweetened the pot with $2.6 million in grants and loans to Anheuser-Busch that appear to have been forgiven in the transfer to the Jacksons.

Once the deal was consummated, Kass crowned Jesse Jackson the "King of Beers." The distributorship sold an estimated $30 million to $40 million of Budweiser and other products a year when Yusef and Jonathan Jackson purchased it on Dec. 1, 1998. They never disclosed where they got the money to buy it, but claimed they had paid a fair price -- although industry analysts estimated in 2001 that the business could be flipped for $25 million. It was a sweet deal, and the Jackson sons showed their gratitude by never responding to reporters' questions about the financial assistance Anheuser-Busch provided them to purchase the business. "If [George W.] Bush can be president, why can't Yusef and Jonathan have a distributorship?" Jesse Jackson told critics indignantly at a meeting of the Chicago Association of Black Journalists in March 2001.