Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition were ostensibly and outspokenly pro-labor and pro-farmer. Rev Jackson’s working class politics, it seems to me were more consistently expressed and more creatively interwoven with the struggles for equality and social justice than the politics of contemporary social movements. Not many have done it – mastered this dialectic – better in my opinion than Jesse in my lifetime.
Moreover, given the movement of a considerable section of high school educated white workers to Trumpian politics and the outsized MAGA constituency in rural America, a serious examination and adaptation of Jesse’s politics and practice to current circumstances would seem to be in order.
