Passing the Torch of Activism

The struggles of the future are clearly more complicated than the struggles of the past.

Part 4 of the “Activist to the Pastor” series

I spent three days last week in the place where I got my professional start on a national level. I attended the Rainbow PUSH annual conference in Chicago. It was the first time I had been inside that headquarters building in 50 years.

My youngest son, Martin, was with me. I took him on a tour of the building where I sat in staff meetings every Monday morning with the most prominent Black leader in America— the Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson. I showed him my old office. I introduced him to the two people still there from the old days, Rev. Janette Wilson and Betty Magness. He met Mrs. Jackie Jackson, the heroic widow of Rev. Jackson.

Mrs. Jacqueline Jackson

I was not there as a speaker. I paid to register us for the conference, walked in through the front door as a participant, had my badge scanned, and sat in the audience. I was not there to be seen or heard. I wanted to hear the new, young voices advocating for a truly free society. I wanted to reflect on the days I attended those weekly staff meetings and reminisce about the stories Rev. Jackson would tell us about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But mostly I was there to support the new leadership of an organization I had once planned to work for forever. And I wanted to consider what a former activist and retired pastor should be contributing to the issues my younger self had dedicated his life to.

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The speakers were passionate. Elected officials, organization leaders and pastors gave insightful analyses and moving speeches. Several acknowledged what rarely gets spoken out loud— that cultural distractions and widespread apathy may be greater enemies to social progress than callous conservatism. The struggles of the future are clearly more complicated than the struggles of the past.

I left satisfied that a new generation of movement leaders was present and had reported for duty. Now their primary challenge is to build the movement. And that challenge is not new.

We generally describe the 1960s as the era of a civil rights movement. The inconvenient truth is that most people were not in the movement at all. Most Black churches were not active in the struggle for civil rights. Most Black people never marched in protest of anything. That is why leading a movement is a heartbreaking business. Most activists live very lonely lives.

Few people today understand the stature that Rev. Jesse Jackson had in the early 1970s. One day in 1975, while we were in Philadelphia helping textile factory workers fight for fair wages and better conditions, he told us he wanted to hold a rally in downtown Philadelphia on Wednesday at noon. It was Monday. Two days’ notice.

The staff looked at each other and wondered how on earth we were supposed to pull this off. But there was no voting in PUSH, and we got to work. Frank Watkins started calling the media. I started calling key clergy. Other staff fanned out across the city. Two days later, 10,000 people showed up at a midday rally in downtown Philadelphia to hear what the “Country Preacher” had to say.

At 24 years old, there was nothing else I could have imagined doing with my life. My job at PUSH was my life.

That is the distinction I kept turning over as I left the conference this week. How many of these new leaders have a life that includes their work? And how many have their work as their life? It is not a small difference. And I know which one causes more damage over time.

There have been a lot of spiritual, social and emotional casualties among people who gave everything to causes, organizations and leaders. I did not do a great job protecting myself when I was an activist. By the time I became a pastor, I had developed a strategy for my community, my family and my own well-being. I wanted these young leaders to benefit from what I had learned - from my successes and my failures, just as I once benefited from Rev. Jackson’s.

The only real activity I participated in at the conference was brief one-on-one conversations with many of the young leaders present. My offer to them was simple: I will be available. I want to help them protect themselves spiritually and financially while they do this work— to appreciate the value of strong families, healthy relationships, and things like good credit, life insurance, annual checkups and regular vacations.

I predict that these leaders are going to register millions of voters. They are going to change things. I believe that. But they need support from those of us who lived long enough to know that they too will one day be replaced. When that day comes, they will need more than news clippings and awards to feel like their lives were fulfilled and well lived.