Chicago pastors reflect on life lessons from Rev. Jesse Jackson
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The Rev. Janette Wilson and Pastor Stephen J. Thurston. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
Pastor Stephen Thurston and the Rev. Janette Wilson's work with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died Tuesday at age 84, started early.
The big picture: Thurston grew up playing at the Jackson house, and his grandfather was close with Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. The King children used to stay at Thurston's grandparents' house when King was in Chicago.
- As a teenager, Wilson participated in Operation Breadbasket and marched on picket lines. She returned after law school to provide legal aid at Rainbow PUSH.
- Jackson tapped Thurston as national youth director at Rainbow PUSH around 2005.
Flashback: Jackson's teaching methods were trial by fire, Wilson and Thurston told Axios last month.
- "It's 'Follow me.' It's 'Watch me.' He would take me on the road with him," Thurston recalled. "If you want to know him, you must travel with him," Wilson added.
- Jackson would instruct his staff to buy all the national newspapers and magazines as well as the local papers for the cities they were visiting because he felt it was important to really understand and assess the needs of the community when they visited.
The intrigue: Despite daily conversations with global and national leaders, Wilson said, Jackson was effective because he was driven by helping those most in need. Wilson recalled a trip to Mississippi in the '80s when they met a woman living in squalor, surrounded by cockroaches and drinking brown water.
- Jackson got her out of there, Wilson said. "He said, 'Behavior is shaped by the conditions, not by the people's attitudes so much. It's about what they are forced to live in and we must fight against that.'"
What's next: Thurston joked last month that Jackson was still running the show at Rainbow PUSH, reading all the newspapers and telling leaders how to lead.
- "We also recognize that [Jackson] was one leader, one charismatic voice, and God did something special with him, and I don't know if God has done something special like that again," Thurston told Axios.