“jesse can’t swim!”

      The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died on Tuesday, was a publicity hound—but so is any politician worthy of the name. 

      He also was a powerful voice for the have-nots in American society, especially those of color. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,” he said from the pulpit—actually the podium of the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco—in 1984. 

      I was in the hall that evening as a reporter and, like everyone else, was moved by Jackson’s soaring, heartfelt words. I also spent part of that presidential campaign year traveling with him both in the U.S. and abroad. Seeing him when the TV lights were off and no one else was around, I grew to better understand him, respect him—and like him. 

      He rightfully was known as the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s heir, having been a part of King’s inner circle, and became over the years America’s perennial prickly presence on civil rights long-denied. 

      I first ran into Jackson when I covered the Carter White House, where Jackson was a frequent guest and advisor. To be honest, it was not hard to see Jesse’s hunger for the spotlight. He had a way of gravitating to, or at least near, any microphone even in a group (I mean he was great for quotes). Like the night in 1980 when Carter, surrounded by supporters and staff, conceded defeat to Ronald Reagan. I rubbed my eyes, though not in surprise, that Jesse was the last person standing at the lectern.  

      Maybe his most egregious act was when he claimed to be the last person to speak to Rev. King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968 before King was assassinated—and held the dying reverend in his arms. (He later backed away from the claim.) 

      But no one could deny Jackson’s passion for equality or his zeal in speaking truth to power. 

      He also had an impossible-to-fake appeal to young people—the kind of thing that was so obvious in Barack Obama. I saw this in 1984 in New Hampshire, during Jackson’s first presidential campaign, as we traveled together in a volunteer’s car going to schools for what amounted to little more than pep talks during the early primaries. 

      These were not big events. I remember being with him in a high school gym with maybe 100 kids and teachers sitting in the basketball seats. As Jackson spoke, he built up slowly to his admonition that they all “were somebody.” This call-and-response started with a rumble, but ended in a roar … 

      “You are … Somebody … I am … Somebody!” 

      It was real. 

      Later, in June of that year, and right before the conventions, I covered Jackson on what may have been the most hairy-assed political trip in all my years of covering campaigns: a multi-country Latin American “peace mission” to Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama that would include talks with then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro. 

      By that time Jackson had built an impressive record acting as a roving ambassador,and let’s be fair, peacemaker, securing release of prisoners and hostages. Regular party Democrats may have grumbled that the trip was taking oxygen away from the party’s presidential effort against Ronald Reagan, but honestly, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  

      An added element was that Jesse needed a win. Jackson had been dogged before the trip by charges of antisemitism (he had been quoted before leaving as having called New York “Hymietown”) and also had drawn fire for ties to radical Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.  

      After some eight hours of talks with Castro, it first appeared that all Jackson would get for his “peace” efforts was the release of 22 small-time American drug smugglers serving long prison sentences in Cuba. It looked as if Fidel were unloading undesirables on Jesse and that the reverend had been played. 

      But at the last minute, Castro announced that he also would accede to Jackson’s request to release another 26 Cuban dissident political prisoners—a genuine accomplishment that ultimately would have an effect on future U.S.-Cuban relations. 

      As a presidential candidate, Jackson had Secret Service protection, and the protective detail insisted that the prisoners flying back in our press plane be segregated from us newsies.  

      It made for a tight fit but it worked, with one final laugh as we took off. 

      Buoyed by the results of the trip and the release of the dissidents, Jackson had noted that his critics once had said that, even if he were to walk on water, they simply would say, “Jesse can’t swim.” 

      As our plane took off, all of us in the back began chanting “Jesse can’t swim!” 

      Jackson got up from his seat as the plane ascended, stood in the middle of the aisle, puffed out his cheeks and mimicked doing the breast stroke. 

Frank Van Riper is a Washington, DC-based documentary photographer, journalist, author and lecturer. During 20 years with the New York Daily News, he served as White House correspondent, national political correspondent and Washington Bureau news editor. He was a 1979 Nieman Fellow at Harvard.