Rainbow PUSH honors MLK as new leaders carry Jesse Jackson's torch
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Photos of Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. in the entrance of PUSH's headquarters in Chicago. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder Rev. Jesse Jackson has taken a step back from the day to day of the South Side organization, but the civil rights icon's influence continues.
Why it matters: Although the 84-year-old Jackson's health in recent years has pushed him out of the limelight, and led to some questions about PUSH's future, leaders at the economic justice organization say PUSH's fight is more relevant than ever.
Driving the news: PUSH's annual MLK Day celebrations take place this weekend, including volunteer activities, an interfaith service and a breakfast Monday that raises scholarship money for students. For the first time in decades, Jackson will not be able to attend.
State of play: The Trump administration's aggressive immigration tactics and funding cuts to social services serve as a reminder that PUSH's mission extends beyond race, Rev. Stephen Thurston, a mentee of Jackson's who grew up around PUSH, tells Axios.
- "We're not allowing the narrative to continue that, 'Oh, it's just the Haitians, it's just the Somalians, it's just the Latinx community. No, it's all of us. Everybody is our neighbor. So that's the message that we have to ingrain in our people."
Rev. Janette Wilson, Jackson's senior advisor and national director for PUSH for Excellence, agrees. "If you're hungry, it doesn't matter to me whether you're Black, white, Hispanic, Asian. You're hungry, I need to figure out why you're not getting food."
Flashback: Both Wilson and Thurston's roots at PUSH run deep. Thurston's grandparents housed Martin Luther King Jr.'s kids on the South Side in the mid-'60s. Wilson traveled with the organization as a teenager when it was Operation Bread Basket and joined Jackson's presidential campaign in the 1980s.
Zoom in: Thurston and Wilson say the only way to learn from Jackson is to travel with him and watch him. Jackson would make his staff buy and read all the newspapers and magazines, including the local paper for whatever city they were visiting, so they understood what the people in those communities needed.
- "It's like the Jesus model when he says, 'Come follow me,'" Wilson tells Axios. "I think the Reverend believed that that's the way you train people."
Reality check: PUSH's current battle is making sure younger generations understand why it's still needed. "We're at that place where we have not properly communicated with the next generation at all," Wilson says. "They thought the movement was over. The movement for the fight for civil rights, economic justice, educational excellence."
What's next: Thurston says the younger leaders of PUSH must build the next generation of leaders, "to create a pipeline of politicians, of young people. That side [Republicans] has a pipeline that's 50 years down the road, we don't have that pipeline."
The bottom line: Jackson is never too far. Thurston jokes he "still gives orders from that bed."