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Jackson neither advocates nor castigates violence as a tactic, but he doubts its effectiveness. "Our experience with the hot war is that it is a bit futile, given the Man's military superiority," he says. "There is no more shock value in riots. The Man is ready for that too." But Jackson argues that whether blacks turn to violence will actually depend upon white decisions. "If more of us are starving, more of us will be fighting at the desperate level. If the question is survival, the reaction is independent of any black leader's thoughts of it. They are irrelevant, because of the nature of man." But if violence must come, he pleads, "let it be as mellow as possible."
These and other Jackson views place him closest to the black nationalists in the current philosophical spectrum of the black movement. He feels that many blacks have common economic grievances with poor whites; Breadbasket's campaign to get the Chicago city council to fight hunger in the city embraces such whites. But Jackson's basic approach is to stimulate the black community into forcing concessions from whites. The nationalism he defends is a nationalism based on a shared experience of oppression rather than on race.
Separatism v. Integration
Always the pragmatist, Jackson is equally undoctrinaire on the argument over separatism and integration. "We're already separate," he observes, "and blacks didn't do the separating—and we don't have the power to do the integrating. So the question becomes whether we remain separate and dependent or become separate and independent—obviously, that's the way we've got to go." Noting that blacks do not remain in ghettos because they love all their neighbors but because they are forced to stay, he observes that those who do manage to move out do so not in pursuit of "the soul, joy and fulfillment" of living with whites, but to escape "the pain, misery and agony" of the slums. He sees no magic in having black kids sit beside whites in schools. "You don't learn anything by osmosis because you sit next to whites." Nevertheless, Jackson prefers school integration because "given the reality of American racism, white children are magnets for capital in education—whites don't intend to leave each other ignorant." As for black studies, Jackson finds them of value in developing self-appreciation, but suggests that it is more important to "spend our energy on the black future."
A pensive man in private, Jackson expounds his opinions forcefully in public. He does not arouse a crowd as readily as King did, but he employs cadence, sweeping hand gestures, a penetrating gaze and abrupt changes in volume to command attention. He deliberately mangles grammar and throws in mild profanity to develop rapport with audiences. He is hopelessly addicted to preacherly metaphors, some effectively illuminating, others either mystifying or inept. "We need leadership," he likes to say, "not leaders. The ship is what's important because