The Rainbow Coalition and a Black Social Democratic Foreign Policy

“America, let us expand. When Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev met there was a big meeting. They represented together one-eighth of the human race. Seven-eighths of the human race was locked out of that room. Most people in the world tonight—half are Asian, one-half of them are Chinese. There are 22 nations in the Middle East. There’s Europe; 40 million Latin Americans next door to us; the Caribbean; Africa—a half-billion people.” When Jesse Jackson uttered these words at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, he was presenting a foreign policy vision that linked back to various traditions—of Pan-Africanism and Black internationalism, along with American Social Democracy and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s own Beloved Community. Analyzing the rhetoric used by Jackson in his Rainbow Coalition campaigns for president, we can see how ideas of African American Social Democracy so often were in conversation with other American traditions of the Left. In the process, we may see echoes of present-day concerns about American foreign policy, the Left, and race.[1]     

Jackson’s involvement in U.S. foreign policy in the 1980s included what might seem today like surprising intersections with larger international crises. For example, Jackson’s trip to Syria in 1984 to secure the release of U.S. Navy pilot Robert Goodman, who was shot down over Lebanon during the American peacekeeping operation in that country, was hailed by some (especially in the African American press) as a personal triumph, and seen by others as—at best—an attempt at grandstanding on the international stage. George F. Will referred to Jackson’s negotiation for Goodman as demonstrating that Jackson was not a serious player for president—only that he was interested only in “being merely, and unpleasantly, spicy.”[2]

Still others worried that Jackson’s views on foreign policy were a serious threat to the Democratic Party’s attempted turn toward the center in the 1980s. In the aftermath of crushing electoral defeats in 1972, 1980, and 1984, the specter of a rising Jesse Jackson in both domestic and foreign policy was too much for some in the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party to stomach. Arch Puddington, then writing in the pages of Commentary, noted that Jackson’s foreign policy approach was a direct rebuke to the attempts of moderate and conservative Democrats to align the Party’s foreign policy approach with that of a more conservative nation. Jackson would not be moved, argued Puddington: “Paradoxically, however, Jackson’s continued espousal of a world view dominated by the image of a militaristic and racially insensitive America has not damaged his public standing.”[3]

Jackson’s “standing” among the American Left was only enhanced by his views on foreign policy. During his 1988 campaign, The Nation endorsed Jackson, arguing that among other reasons for their support was their view that his foreign policy offered an effective antidote to the defense build-up of Ronald Reagan. They argued that a Jesse Jackson presidency would mean the end of “the war economy that has defined the American Century for fifty years” and that the United States might finally have a “peace economy.”[4] This wording is important for two reasons. First, it links to Jackson’s own calls for reviewing trade deals with other nations. During his 1984 and 1988 campaigns, Jackson made an argument for what can be understood as a “left-populism” approach to trade. Jackson’s talking points included the refrain, “South Koreans did not take jobs from us, GM took jobs to them—with government incentives.”[5] In other words, Jackson often tried to tie together issues of economic change within the United States to international relations.

The Nation’s invocation of “the American Century” is important to note also because of how it indirectly relates to another tradition Jackson tapped into. I argue that Jackson’s public statements on foreign policy echoed some of the themes of Henry Wallace’s 1942 speech, “Century for the Common Man.” This is, again, a reminder of how a Social Democratic tradition in the United States often means to formulation—and reformulation—of ideas over time. Where Wallace argued “older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military or economic imperialism,” Jackson, as shown at the start of this essay, argued profusely for Americans to see themselves as part of a larger world community, and not merely as part of the most powerful nation on Earth.[6]

At this point, I wish to stop before talking about Jackson and Palestine, as that requires a separate (and equally lengthy) post. That follow-up will come soon. But I hope this offers a window into how Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition offered a challenge to the foreign policy consensus in the United States in the 1980s from the Left—one that combined and built upon multiple legacies of American internationalism.

[1] Jesse Jackson, “1988 Democratic National Convention Address,” Atlanta, Georgia. https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jessejackson1988dnc.htm

[2] George F. Will, “Jesse Jackson in Syria,” The Washington Post, January 1, 1984. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1984/01/01/jesse-jackson-in-syria/70338f87-4d17-465d-8ed3-37205a95f9d3/?utm_term=.c5b34147b97f, accessed on July 24, 2019.

[3] Arch Puddington, “Jesse Jackson; The Blacks and American Foreign Policy,” Commentary, April 1984. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/jesse-jackson-the-blacks-american-foreign-policy/, accessed July 25, 1984.

[4] The Editors, “For Jesse Jackson and His Campaign,” The Nation, April 16, 1988, https://www.thenation.com/article/jesse-jackson-and-his-campaign/, accessed July 25, 2019.

[5] Charles P. Henry, “Jesse Jackson and the Decline of Liberalism in Presidential Politics,” The Black Scholar, January/February 1989, p. 9.

[6] Henry A. Wallace, “The Century of the Common Man,” https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/henrywallacefreeworldassoc.htm, accessed July 25, 2019.