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After that victory, Jackson's troops moved on to persuade neighborhood companies to do their banking in black banks and savings and loan associations. The combined assets of two such banks rose quickly from $5,000,000 to $22 million. Grocery chains were pressed into using black contractors to build their new stores in the ghetto. Many stores have capitulated to Breadbasket without any direct pressure at all because, as Jackson puts it, "they heard our footsteps coming."
With less success, but considerable potential, Jackson has set up other Breadbasket operations in eight cities, including Los Angeles, Milwaukee. Indianapolis, Brooklyn, Houston and Cleveland. The effort in Cleveland was broadened to include political action. One surprising tactic there was designed to combat what blacks feared would be police harassment of black voters to prevent the re-election of Mayor Stokes last November. The interference was expected at polling places late in the day, when city voters usually turn out in greatest numbers. But Breadbasket sent its band, accompanied by some 600 black teenagers, into Negro areas at 5 a.m. on election day. They raised such a racket that thousands of irate residents awoke—to be told to vote early in the morning. The early black turnout helped clinch a Stokes victory.
I Am Somebody
Although Breadbasket has become linked almost solely to Jackson's name and image, it is far from a one-man show. Efficiently organized into functional divisions, it runs smoothly, even when Jackson is away, under the day-today administration of such able aides as the Rev. Calvin Morris, the associate director, and a lively woman minister, the Rev. Mrs. Willie P. Barrow.
Wherever he may travel during the week, however, Jackson inevitably returns to Chicago for the one big showpiece effort that keeps Breadbasket spiritually together: a three-hour Saturday morning meeting (90 minutes of it broadcast locally by radio) in which black ministers mingle with black businessmen, tough youth-gang leaders sit beside aspiring politicians, and some 5,000 of Jackson's fans shout their "Right on, Jesse!" and "Tell it, brother!" as he pitches for the current Breadbasket programs. He calls it "hustling time," and he sells pride as well as products. "I am somebody," he chants. "I am somebody," comes the crowd's ringing echo.
Jesse Jackson is somebody all right. He 'has a host of adoring admirers as well as caustic critics. But he is still too young to assume a black leadership role on a national scale. He rightfully resents white journalists who portray him as the heir to King or the rival to Abernathy. If S.C.L.C. were to seek a new leader today, the Atlanta-based organization would not be apt to reach outside the South. Until he decided to run for Congress, the most likely