Bob Cramer's Blog

The passing of Jesse Jackson last month marked the end of a pioneering era of civil rights in America. Rev. Jackson’s Presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 represented the first time many Americans imagined that a black man could actually win the highest office in the land. Rev. Jackson cleared the way for the emergence of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, and opened the door for people of all races to leave their mark on American politics.

My own personal story of Jesse Jackson goes back to when I was a lowly first year assignment editor working weekends in the CNN newsroom on the ground floor of New York’s One World Trade Center.

One terribly rainy Sunday in 1984 provided a unique opportunity to travel with a Presidential campaign as Rev. Jackson barnstormed historically black churches around northern New Jersey.

I was assigned to travel in a van with a CNN camera crew as we joined the Presidential candidate motorcade, complete with Secret Service, Black Sedans, and local police escorts, eerily snaking our way through town after town, through downpour after downpour, with Jackson in search of votes and me in search a ringside view of big league politics.

The day turned out to be more than I could bargain for. The beautiful, full-choir gospel music, something I had not often experienced, mixed with Rev. Jackson’s full oratory skills on display moved me in ways that I did not anticipate. “I am somebody”, “I am not a perfect being, I am a human being”. Perhaps it was a religious experience of some sort, a political awakening, or just the powerful one-two combinations or words, lyrics and music mixed together in a crescendo of hope, dreams, and a coalition of color, possibility, and opportunity.

I remember when I got home, I had to sit down and write about this amazing and transformative day. I was touched, and I needed to try and capture what had just occurred. There was no blogging in those days. Just a young reporter, with a typewriter, moved and inspired by one of America’s most impactful speakers.

While I have kept lots of memorabilia from my CNN days, I could not find my write-up. However, I do remember what happened. As we came out of the final church of the day, the weather cleared. As a student of political science, and now a young news man, this amazing day had one more treat in mind: as Rev. Jackson walked to his car, about to head on into the future, he was greeted by the most beautiful rainbow, full and complete against the darkening skies, in a town ironically called East Orange, NJ.