Source: In These Times
by staff
“The Rev. Jesse Jackson died February 17 at age 84. In 1984 and 1988, the civil rights activist ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the first Black man to wage a major national campaign for the White House. In his 1988 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Jackson emphasized, ’Politics can be a moral arena where people come together to find a common ground.’ Salim Muwakkil, in coverage for In These Times, made a similar assessment, writing that while many of Jackson’s followers ’are more comfortable agitating or deriding conventional political wisdom’, Jackson ’managed to harmonize most of those discordant notes.’ Almost 40 years later, as once-outsider politicians like Zohran Mamdani — now the first Muslim mayor of New York City — attempt to carve out space within the political mainstream, we return to Muwakkil’s words on the costs and opportunities of movement institutionalization and ‘“political maturity.'” (05/07/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/jesse-jackson-for-president-democrat-operation-push