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More often, the new black localism is the work of lesser known figures who are learning how to create black self-help groups, to force coalitions of white civic leaders and black activists where necessary, and to work among the black poor to give them hope and the techniques to improve their living conditions. It is hard, painstaking, unromantic work in which success seldom comes swiftly, but once achieved, can have lasting effect.
Any one of a dozen such grass-roots leaders could be used to symbolize the ways in which black gains, however modest, are being achieved in communities. One who is more articulate and arresting than most is Rev. Jesse Jackson, an intense, passionate advocate of using black economic power to force white-run businesses to provide more and better jobs for blacks and to open chain-store shelves to black products. Tall and sensuously attractive, Jackson is the kind of leader who suggests both a dignity of bearing in his brooding dedication to his cause and a sense of brotherly warmth in his casual Levi's, boots and open sport shirts. He possesses what he himself matter-of-factly accepts as charisma, and he inspires devotion among a wide range of followers.
Orator v. Organizer
As the Chicago-based national director of S.C.L.C.'s economic arm, Operation Breadbasket, Jackson has effectively coerced some 15 companies in Chicago's heavily black South Side into opening up 5,000 new jobs for blacks in the past four years. At 28, he effectively bridges the widening gulf between the young activists and the old-style moralistic preachers. His strength is his use of evangelistic fervor to achieve pragmatic ends. "You can be an orator or an organizer," he insists. "I am an organizer." Actually, he is a blend of both, and sometimes describes his occupation as that of a "moral engineer."
Jackson fully recognizes the uses of diversity in black leadership, and is the first to put down anyone who attempts to fit him for the mantle of Martin Luther King or even label him first among his peers in local organizing. He has chosen to work within the system and manages to twist it against itself into grudgingly granting black demands, but he does not disparage other voices, other tactics. "No man can tell a man who is hurting how to holler," he argues. "The business of trying to decry people because of the way they complain of injustice is past and gone."
Thus Jackson does not condemn the Black Panthers; neither does he embrace their Marxist philosophy or all of their tactics. Because the Panthers are so widely seen as victims of police repression, they pose a delicate problem for many black leaders. Jackson handles that problem rather skillfully. He accepts their claim that they espouse violence only defensively, in response to white terrorism against them. He lauds their contribution to black pride. With the same ease, Jackson can endorse moderates; he praises Roy Wilkins for fighting racial injustice "long before I was born." He sees the usefulness of tuxedoed black leaders who attend banquets and charm wealthy whites into donating to black causes. He is willing to work with whites to create a social, if not a political revolution: "The young white radicals who are rebelling against their mamas and daddies because their