Jesse Jackson: The romanticism of silver halide

Jesse Jackson: The romanticism of silver halide

CPR GUEST ESSAY

BY DANIEL LEVIN, MFA

Daniel Levin is a contemporary artist,
author, educator, documentarian, and lecturer
whose works primarily explore his societal concerns. 

On March 15, 1988, the Democratic primary for President of the United States was held in Illinois. I was 25. 

Just 10 months earlier, I had graduated with a BFA in Documentary Photography from RIT. During finals week, I was humbled to be told one of my photographs won the Institute’s Purchase Prize for my graduating class. Considering how difficult it was for me to get through the Materials and Processes of Photography course, a year of physics, optics, and chemistry of photography taught by the renowned Drs. Zakia, Compton, and Stroebel, this welcome recognition was an unexpected miracle. 

Following assisting photographers in Rochester, my former wife and I moved to Chicago. I had a primal yearning to assist photographers there before I was ready to eventually hang my own studio shingle. 

As is the case in many national political campaigns, it is common to hire highly motivated and committed young campaign members to surprisingly senior positions. Jeff Rusnak, my dear friend from Youngstown who was also 25, was selected by Jerry Austin, the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s campaign manager, to be Jesse’s campaign scheduler. A scheduler’s role is to coordinate all logistics for the candidate, as well as for the traveling campaign team, the Secret Service, and the national press pool. It is a grueling job. 

In February, Jeff moved into our Chicago apartment just after the Iowa primaries. He stayed through early April. If Jesse was a spinning top of a candidate, Jeff was the keeper of the keys, day after day arranging all of the hotel rooms, restaurants, venues, and transportation for Jesse’s massive entourage. More than once, a member of the Secret Service called our home phone, seemingly desperate, trying to track Jeff down due to Jesse’s inopportune decision to change his plans with little notice. 

While it would be a few years until I would be hired for the first time by The New York Times for my first photojournalism job, I asked Jeff if he could get me a press pass for Chicago’s primary election day. I have always been an inquisitive person, which is certainly one of the core reasons I chose photography as my career. On this particular Tuesday, I was determined to find out what it was to be Jesse Jackson on the day he had the extraordinary opportunity to vote for himself to be the next President of the United States, and to do so in his hometown of Chicago, home of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Jesse’s grassroots machine. 

I have been a professor at Tri C for 23 years. I am sure I have countless times told students that in such an environment as my day with Jesse, one should envision having a forcefield cloak around oneself. The cloak is transparent from the inside. From the outside, no one knows you are in the room. Having such a mindset was not taught to me. It was simply something I realized I needed to do to make photographs without a protective wall, photographs that are intimate. 

The first phase of Cabrini Green was completed in 1942. Cabrini Green was a housing project on the near North side of Chicago made up of 55 two and three story buildings. In 1944, the GI Act was signed by FDR. As the war wound down, Cabrini Green was flooded with soldiers returning, ready to live better lives at affordable costs. 

A confluence occurred in the early 1940s when the second wave of the Great Migration began. Black families journeyed north from Southern states to find economic opportunities and to leave Jim Crow in the mirror. Many of these families began moving into Chicago’s Cabrini Green. 

In 1958, 15 apartment towers were built in the expanding Cabrini Green. In 1962, eight more were completed. By then, white flight was in full force in the housing complex. In time, Cabrini Green became a national symbol of deteriorated public housing. It was a cavernous, hardened, inhumane place to live. 

Much of my day with Jesse was spent in the valleys of towering Cabrini Green. It was a given that the Secret Service was not excited about this prospect. In 1970, a sniper killed two Chicago policemen from the balcony of a Cabrini Green tower. Incredibly, on April 4, 1968, Jesse Jackson was standing next to Dr. Martin Luther King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was assassinated. Jesse walking openly through Cabrini Green on election day was a lightning rod for concern for Jesse’s safety. He survived without incident. Between 2000 and 2011, Cabrini Green was demolished. It is remembered as one of America’s most poorly designed housing failures. 

I shot 14 rolls of 36 exposure black and white film that day. For ease of viewing, I made 11 by 14 enlarged proofs of each, which today I keep in my archives along with the negatives. 

The chant of Jesse’s mantra, “Keep Hope Alive,” will ring in my ears forever. He was an incredible orator. As can be seen in many of my photographs, he moved his audiences. The pride in Cabrini’s residents for Jesse Jackson was clear to everyone in attendance. The mood was electric, whether he was in front of thousands or visiting a family in one of Cabrini’s intimate low rise apartments. 

That day, I spent time with Jesse’s sons, Jonathan and Jesse Jr. In 1988, Jonathan was just 22 and Jesse Jr. was 23. Today, Jesse Jackson Jr. is a retired congressman who represented Illinois’ 2nd congressional district. Jonathan Jackson is a sitting congressman representing Illinois’ 1st district. Of my 14 rolls, I believe my favorite frame from the day was a portrait I made of Jonathan during a contemplative moment, alone on our bus, far removed from the energy outside. 

Jesse Jackson will be laid to rest today. This morning, in the numerous stories I read about him, one pricked me in a punctum kind of way. Britt Hume, the conservative commentator, described himself as generally unmoved during his years on the beat for ABC News, later Fox News. Hume recalled being struck while attending a particular Jackson rally in Georgia. As Jesse spoke, Hume suddenly welled up from somewhere deep inside himself. This punctum prick I mention comes from my memory of Hume being with me on that Tuesday in Chicago in 1988. I made a handful of candid portraits of him. 

Following Jesse making an unplanned stop at a diner on our way to our next scheduled rally, I documented a beautiful, yet mundane, moment, as a journalist who upon returning to our bus, took notes reflecting on Jesse’s time having his diner breakfast. For me, there is no higher calling than being a journalist (assuming one is committed to remaining in the center of the Ad Fontes Media Bias chart), no matter how much our leaders try to vilify our “fourth estate,” a pillar required for all democracies. My day with Jesse reminds me of this tenet with crystal clarity. 

In a few hours, back in sweet home Chicago, Jesse Jackson will be honored by Presidents Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama. Obama’s path was certainly cleared in part by Jesse’s life’s work. If there is ever a time to reflect on one’s life’s work, it would be today for Jesse Jackson. Rest in peace Reverend. 

Daniel Levin, MFA 

Daniel Levin is a contemporary artist, author, educator, documentarian, and lecturer whose works primarily explore his societal concerns. He is the author of Violins and Hope : From the Holocaust to Symphony Hall, which won the Independent Publisher National Book of the Year for History, coBee table scale. This May and June, Levin’s exhibition of Violins and Hope will have a solo showing at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Levin is currently working on an 8-year exhibition and new book titled Kindness Repeated : an examination of History in the context of the present, which is a provocative series of large scale photographic tableau self-portraits created across America, that address current questionable ethical choices made by some contemporary elected officials.