My Mother Taught Me the Game: Rev. Jackson Showed Me the Stakes

Life has a funny way of coming full circle. When I was a child, my mother would sit me down in front of the television to watch political conventions, debates, and the nightly news. This was not casual viewing in our household. It was an instruction. My mom was from Birmingham, Alabama, and carried with her the political weight and civic struggles that Black Americans of her generation endured. Because of that, she was determined that her children would understand how the system worked, or as she often called it, “the game.”  Quietly, she encouraged a career in public service.

While I initially had other plans, the old saying proved true: ” Mother knows best. The years carried me from a legislative office to the heat of political campaigns, from behind a radio microphone hosting conversations about politics and current affairs, to the very conventions and inaugurations I had once watched from my living room as a youth. Even still, nothing quite prepared me for the moment last week when I found myself seated at the funeral of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, one of the very figures who helped shape the political world my mother insisted I learn to navigate.

Surveying the room, the magnitude of the moment settled in. Three former Presidents. A Vice President, Secretary of State, and Members of Congress. Movie stars. National faith leaders. Titans of corporate America. The room held an extraordinary concentration of power, influence, and celebrity. And yet, despite all that presence, I found myself most in awe of the man who lay before us.

Speaker after speaker rose to the podium, sharing stories, memories, and tributes to a man who had touched so many corners of American public life. As my imagination jumped from one voice to the next, trying to picture the moments they described, the marches, the negotiations, the late-night strategy sessions, my thoughts kept drifting forward, not backward. And I have to admit, those thoughts were selfish.

I found myself asking a quiet but persistent question: Who is going to show up now? Who carries enough political heft and moral authority to compel leaders to action? Who can call the powerful to account and have them actually listen? Yes, a few familiar and reliable names from the civil rights movement were still present in the room. But time has a way of reminding us that even giants grow older.

As I sat there, listening, my eyes began to well with tears, not only for the loss we were honoring that day, but for the realization quietly settling in around me. I was now strategically old enough to understand the world that existed when Rev. Jackson first began his work. I understood, perhaps in a way I could not have years ago, what it meant to challenge systems that seemed immovable. I could feel, in that moment, the weight carried by those who came before.

I held back tears for my parents and grandparents. I breathed heavy for every freedom rider, bridge crosser, and marcher who placed their bodies on the line so that democracy might stretch just a little further toward its promise. In that room, filled with Presidents and dignitaries, the most powerful presence was the history that surrounded us, and the responsibility it quietly placed on the rest of us.

Because the truth is, movements are not sustained by one towering figure. They are carried forward by ordinary people who, at some point, decide that the work must continue. The question is no longer just who will show up now. The question is whether the rest of us will.