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The son of an unwed teenager, Jesse learned early that his real father, Noah Robinson, lived right next door. This was in Greenville, S.C., and big Noah was a local hero, a handsome, hardworking man no one dared challenge. If pushed too far, Noah Robinson would flatten adversaries, even whites, with his fists. "He was a black Lone Ranger," recalls a half brother of Jesse's, Noah Robinson Jr. "Jesse loved our father, but he felt totally rejected." When he was nine, Jesse used to stand in the yard and gaze across at his father's ) house. If a face appeared in the window, the boy would turn and run away. When big Noah took his own family on a trip, Jackson's biographer Barbara Reynolds has reported, Jesse grieved to go with him. In the neighborhood the young Jackson was taunted by other boys about having no father. At the Baptist church, moralistic parishioners made his mother feel like an outcast.
His sense of shame had a positive side. Jesse always tried harder, teachers and coaches recall. Remembers Jackson: "People don't laugh at you when you get A's." But always there was a feeling of being locked out. Today Jackson still thinks of Noah Robinson as a hero. Occasionally he drops in on him, and he calls him on Father's Day.
Jackson's need for respect still shows. He bristles at slights. At a recent fund raiser, a white contributor stood up to pledge a sum of money and lectured Jackson in hard language that he'd have to be more cooperative. Jackson swore back at him and told him to keep his money. Recalls Jackson: "He thought his cash gave him that right." Questions that call attention to his broad black support bring an edge of anger to his voice. He points to another candidate. "Does Mike Dukakis worry only about Greeks?"
Jackson suffered another terrible emotional blow in 1968. At 26 he was a promising young member of Martin Luther King's civil rights team. Considered pushy by some, the young Jackson impressed and amused King, who particularly appreciated his ability to get business firms to cough up contributions. Even if Jesse did crowd into pictures with the leader, King tolerated it with a smile. When King was shot and killed on a motel balcony in Memphis, Jackson was standing below in a courtyard. Somehow he managed to end up with King's blood smeared over his shirt. Early the next morning, Jackson turned up 500 miles away on television in Chicago still wearing the bloodied shirt and implying he had held the dying King in his arms. His behavior horrified King's lieutenants, who viewed it as profound opportunism. Coretta King could barely conceal her disgust, and for years she would not even speak to Jackson.