Xavier Pickett

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

Xavier Pickett, an assistant professor of Africana studies at Cornell University and a scholar of Black religion and politics, says Jackson’s death should spur fresh reflection on his faith‑driven coalition politics, cultural impact, and his role in shaping the nation’s conscience. that produced him.

Pickett says:

“Rooted in a distinct Southern, Afro-Protestant religious tradition, Jesse Jackson dared to believe he could keep hope alive in the dream articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—a dream for which King was assassinated directly in front of Jackson. 

“Faced with the question, ‘Where do we go from here?’, Jackson created a rainbow political coalition that inspired the nation to imagine a world without suffering and oppression, where enough people would have the moral courage to reject the illogics of race and stand up for a higher set of rights for all. 

“This achievement is easy to be cynical about or take for granted today, but the moral credibility of a truly multiracial politics in America owes much to Jackson’s unique individual qualities as well as to, crucially, the social milieu that produced him.”