Jackson PUSHes On

Outside the shabby Metropolitan Theater in the center of Chicago's South Side black ghetto, a crowd on the sidewalk listened carefully to the words coming from loudspeakers. For almost four hours, they and 3,000 others jammed inside heard the Rev. Jesse Jackson spell out his plans for Operation PUSH--People United to Save Humanity--which would continue the programs he started while head of Operation Breadbasket. The new organization, Jackson said, would be born officially on Christmas Day, and its membership would be a "rainbow coalition" of people, white and black, who would "push for a greater share of economic and political power for all poor people in America in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

By starting PUSH, Jackson ended a nearly six-year association with Operation Breadbasket and its parent organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King headed until his death in 1968. Without King's powers of mediation and persuasion, rifts had deepened between the two men who inherited the largest pieces of King's mantle. There was Jackson, 30, a driving organizer who made Breadbasket, a Chicago-based coalition of black ministers and entrepreneurs, into a successful tool for building black businesses. And there was the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, 45, an oldstyle Southern preacher who succeeded King as president of S.C.L.C. Officially, Breadbasket has been the economic arm of S.C.L.C. Only a few months after King died, Jackson said of Abernathy: "Man, I never listen to that nigger." As Jackson's success grew, the split between him and Abernathy widened.

The conflict between them first surfaced publicly in 1968 at an S.C.L.C. national convention in Memphis, when Jackson started angling for a post high in the S.C.L.C. hierarchy. The board of directors, made up of older ministers and professional men, turned him down. Said one observer: "He tried to leapfrog too many people who were working harder than himself." Last year Jackson was asked to move Breadbasket headquarters to Atlanta; he refused. Abernathy backed down, but after that, Jackson's resignation was only a matter of time. When he finally quit three weeks ago, he said he needed "room to grow."

Lost Edge. While Abernathy is dedicated and hard working, he never pretended to match the magnetic qualities of King. Jackson, however, brought a new style to the civil rights struggle--a combination of youth, good looks and sheer audacity. Jackson's public emphasis on the importance of economic growth to black progress made him a national figure. Now he contends that the civil rights movement has lost its cutting edge. "It has no offensive thrust," he complains. With PUSH, Jackson plans to keep stressing economics, but with an increased concern for politics as well. Jackson currently disclaims any personal political aspirations, but he plans to lean heavily on politicians to work harder for black economic opportunity.

The new organization has ample support; Operation Breadbasket's entire 25-man Chicago staff and 30 of its 35 board members quit with Jackson. Money will be a problem, but plenty of prominent blacks have offered to help Jackson raise the estimated $250,000 PUSH will need for its first six months of operation--among them Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, Gary, Ind., Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, Singer Aretha Franklin, Fullback-turned-Actor Jim Brown, and Actor Ossie Davis, who is something of a behind-the-scenes power in the civil rights movement. However, those backers took care to say that they do not mean to abandon S.C.L.C., an institution that they feel must be preserved.

S.C.L.C. officials have had little to say about Jackson's new organization. Most feel that PUSH will help black businessmen more than it will aid the poor. They plan to continue Breadbasket and the other programs that have made S.C.L.C. the largest direct-action, grass-roots civil rights group in the U.S. Its organizers, working mainly in Southern states, have managed to register black voters, successfully demonstrate for jobs, and generally lead the assault on racial injustice. But some sympathetic critics, like Reese Cleghorn, a white liberal formerly on the Southern Regional Council, feel that the organization relies too much on tactics that were more effective ten years ago than today. There are recurring rumors that Abernathy may soon be forced out.

Rolls or Chevy. In resigning, Jackson may have irreparably harmed S.C.L.C., but he contends that he did not intend to, and that both the conference and his new organization can function without conflict. Says Jackson: "We have the same goals. Now we can both work to expand on those goals in the interests of black and poor people everywhere." He refuses to defend himself against S.C.L.C. charges and innuendos. Among other things, S.C.L.C. has ordered an audit of the Breadbasket books, and refuses to accept Jackson's resignation. When Jackson quit, he insisted that all assets be turned over to S.C.L.C.: "We will take nothing that was raised under the name Breadbasket."

Although some peacemaking attempts are still under way, the break is final. How well Jackson will succeed on his new course is uncertain. Says the Rev. William A. Jones Jr., a pastor in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto who has been appointed to take over Jackson's Breadbasket role temporarily: "With his peculiar gifts, he may be able to develop a new instrument that will attract like-minded people. Whether he is giving up a Cadillac for a Rolls-Royce or a Chevy remains to be seen."

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