I am Somebody

Growing up in my hometown of Chicago and attending Christ Methodist Church on the Southside of Chicago, afforded me a close-up view and consistent exposure to champions of civil and human rights.

It was in high school when I was introduced to The Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., who over the years, profoundly influenced my life and ministry.

Because our local Church in Chicago became a northern branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), our pastor Reverend John R. Porter became a close associate of Reverend Jackson. Pastor Porter engaged in the early support of Operation Breadbasket and later Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), both led by Reverend Jackson. For me, as a youth leader and later seminary student minister, I too was fully engaged and blessed by this connection.

As a seminary student at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, I joined a small group of students invited to the home of Reverend Jackson and his wife Mrs. Jacquelyne Jackson. We enjoyed a meal of hot dogs and beans, genuine hospitality, and serious conversation about the families Reverend Jackson was fighting for justice, after their sons were shot and killed by police. We saw autopsy pictures that revealed a different story often told about “justified shootings.” This was the 1980s before smartphones and social media.

During my time at seminary, I was again influenced by another Baptist preacher, theologian and community activist, The Reverend Dr. Hycel B. Taylor. Being a faculty member at Garrett Seminary, Dr. Taylor invited Reverend Jackson to teach a course that focused on, “Applied Theology and Social Justice,” which I enrolled and enthusiastically participated.

Jackson’s Life of Social Engagement, Hope and Justice

During that academic seminary course, Reverend Jackson breathed life into practical theology as relational, radical engagement to bring justice out of textbooks into the streets and into the lives of the overlooked and disrespected.

Our small class of students traveled on Saturdays from Evanston, IL, to Operation PUSH meetings in Chicago, and ministered to inmates at the Chicago Cook County Jail with Reverend Jackson as our teacher and mentor.

According to Reverend Jackson, there was no authentic leadership or pastoral ministry that did not take seriously and literally the demands of Matthew 25, and the judgement of Nations; “For I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in…Naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

Reverend Jackson also believed that there was a strong intersection of justice between access to economic opportunity and voting power. In his lifetime, Reverend Jackson was the foremost advocate to engage young voters, organize Black churches, Black colleges, and multi-cultural coalition partners to increase voter participation, promote job expansion and pursue higher employment wages.

Reverend Jackson’s life of speaking and organizing was always on behalf of the constituency that he described in his two 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the Office of President of the United States. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despise,” said Jackson.

As a tireless ambassador of hope, Reverend Jesse Jackson would often quote Psalm 37:25 (ESV) “I was young and now I am old; yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.”

I will always remember his commitment to teaching young leaders and pastors to get closer to the people you want to serve and the problems you want to solve.

One Man Who Helped Bend the Arc of The Moral Universe Toward Justice

The work of one man, Reverend Jesse Jackson, a prophetic voice for the desperate and disrespected, stood with families for justice, with or without news headlines, and taught young preachers to do more than just preach on Sundays.

If you read the story of Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., including his humble beginnings and the strong family legacy he leaves, you will be amazed as to how much this one man helped to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. In many ways for me, he was a brilliant rap artist, poetic theologian and social scientist for peace and justice.

Reverend Jesse Jackson was also an avid supporter of the United Methodist Social Principles. Reverend Jackson visited Church and Society offices and met with staff in Washington and New York City multiple times to elevate issues of social concern.

In 1990, Chicago native and United Methodist Bishop Felton May awarded Reverend Jackson the Symbolic Hope Candle.

Another Black History Moment of Genius

Known as the “High Priestess of Soul,” Nina Simone, an American musician and singer, gave us ‘To Be Young Gifted and Black in 1969 to a crowd of 50,000 at the Harlem Cultural Festival.

James Brown, an African American singer/performer known as the Godfather of Soul, gave us “I’m Black and I’m Proud” during his historic concert at the Boston Garden Arena in 1968.

However, it was The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., who gave us the declaration that embraced the genius of Simone, Brown, and the kings and queens of Africa, the declaration of Genesis 1:26-27, Imago dei, and the words of grandmothers, grandfathers, and the cloud of witnesses who have preceded us.

Say it with Me! “I AM Somebody.”

Be encouraged,

Bishop Julius Trimble
General Secretary
The General Board of Church and Society