He challenged black Americans in the 1960s and ’70s, then retreated into victimhood and grievance.

By Robert L. Woodson Sr.

At a memorial service for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, his son Jesse Jr. praised his “consistent prophetic voice.” There is truth to that. The Jesse Jackson I
remember began his career as a prophetic voice to the nation. The tragedy is that he didn’t always remain faithful to that calling.

I met Jesse Jackson in the late 1960s. In those years, he spoke clearly about the crisis facing black America. He understood that the struggle before black youth wasn’t merely economic but moral.

In an August 1978 essay for Ebony, he observed that if the rising generation of black youth hoped to “close the gap and catch up” in income and education, their priority should be discipline:

“Morally weak people not only inhibit their own personal growth, but finally contribute to the politics of decadence. . . . A generation of people lacking the moral and physical stamina necessary to fight a protracted civilizational crisis is dangerous to itself, its neighbors and to future generations.”

This was the true spirit of the civil-rights movement: moral uprising, not mere political maneuvering. Jackson anticipated the objections of readers who would rather remain fixated on racism: “While I know that the victimizer may be responsible for the victim being down, the victim must be responsible for getting up.” Those were not the words of a partisan politician. They were the words of a moral reformer.

At his best, Jackson confronted not only injustice from without, but the moral failures within our own communities. He spoke of responsibility and self-determination and challenged wounded people not to surrender to victimhood. Many of us respected him for that. I certainly did.

After he entered the partisan machinery, his prophetic voice gradually gave way to the language of grievance, compromise and self-preservation. He no
longer spoke primarily as a reformer, but as a performer on the political stage—a power broker. His focus strayed from rebuilding the moral and
social foundations of struggling communities toward mobilizing their resentments.

Read the full op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. *

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