Jesse, King and the Business of Black Leadership

LOS ANGELES--Jesse Jackson is peeved that Martin Luther King Jr.'s chronicler, Taylor Branch, revealed that King regarded Jackson as an egoist and opportunist. Branch made the charge in "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968." He claimed that after a stormy meeting in Memphis shortly before his assassination, Dr. King shouted at Jackson that he wanted to carve out his own niche in society and was only interested in doing his own thing.

Jackson has a right to be incensed at Branch. The revelation (allegation?) comes decades after King's death, giving Jackson little chance to refute it. But Jackson's ire and the propriety of the charge aside, the flap points to the glaring contrast in objectives, style and even personal motives between King, Jackson and other mainstream black leaders then and now.

King's style of leadership was egalitarian, hands-on and in the trenches, and he always kept a careful eye on the needs of poor and working class blacks. He was a selfless leader who never made a nickel from his civil rights activism. He would be appalled at the cash, glitter and bling fetish of prominent blacks. He would have been aghast at the money squabble within his own family over the King Center's fate.

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