How Jesse Jackson used the South to reshape Democratic politics
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Rev. Jesse Jackson stands with Stacey Abrams during her 2018 gubernatorial campaign in Atlanta. Abrams has said Jackson viewed the city as a fulcrum for shifting political power across the South. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
Rev. Jesse Jackson's influence in the South wasn't just symbolic — it reshaped how political power is allocated in the Democratic Party, says Emory political scientist Andra Gillespie.
Why it matters: Cities from Cleveland to San Francisco are recalling Jackson's national imprint after his death on Tuesday. He leveraged Southern Black voters to gain bargaining power that changed Democratic primary rules — shifts that still shape presidential contests today.
The big picture: Jackson's career reflected a belief that transforming political and economic power in the Southern states could reshape national politics, and Atlanta was uniquely positioned to amplify that effort.
- Jackson will be lying in state at Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters two days next week with celebratory public services through early March.
Flashback: Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and quickly became part of King's inner circle.
- He mobilized young activists during the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches and was in Memphis in 1968, speaking with King in the hotel courtyard minutes before his assassination.
- Jackson later built Operation Breadbasket and Rainbow PUSH Coalition, fusing economic pressure with political organizing. While based in Chicago, these efforts sought to shift corporate and political power across the South.
Gillespie told Axios Jackson understood that economic leverage and democratic power were intertwined, particularly in Southern states where Black voters made up a significant share of Democratic primary electorates.
Zoom out: Jackson's presidential bids in 1984 and 1988 demonstrated the pivotal role of Southern Black voters in Democratic primaries, Gillespie said.
- "In 1984, everything he won was south of the Mason-Dixon Line," she said.
By 1988, she noted, Jackson's strong second-place finish gave him leverage to push the Democratic Party toward proportional delegate allocation — a rule change that later helped candidates like Barack Obama compete more effectively in primaries.
- Unlike cities such as Birmingham or New Orleans, she noted, Georgia's broader racial diversity and population growth created conditions for sustained political innovation.
- "Georgia is uniquely positioned to innovate," she said.
Zoom in: Stacey Abrams, a prominent Georgia Democrat who ran for governor in 2018 and 2022, said Jackson's influence on her began long before her first campaign.
- "When I was a college student, he was a gift to me as a mentor," she said.
Years later, Abrams said, she saw his Southern strategy up close during her gubernatorial bid.
- "He understood why I was running for governor and not for mayor," she said. "He was a child of the South, and he understood the extraordinary power wielded by the state."
Atlanta, she said, was a "proxy for Georgia and for Mississippi and Alabama and North Carolina and South Carolina and Louisiana."
Between the lines: Abrams, the daughter and granddaughter of pastors, said Jackson's political instincts were shaped by his pastoral training.
- "He wasn't just a pastor," she said. "He understood that being a pastor was about building community, about storytelling, and then about calls to action."
- Abrams said those skills translated beyond the pulpit, helping Jackson turn moral authority into economic pressure and electoral influence across the South.
The bottom line: From a young SCLC organizer to a presidential contender who reshaped Democratic primary rules, Jackson's 60-year career left a structural imprint on American politics.
- "That's a remarkable career," Gillespie said.
Go deeper: Civil rights icon Jesse Jackson dies at 84
