Remembering That Time Rev. Jesse Jackson Smacked Me On My Forehead

The news of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s death arrived like the quiet closing of a door that had been open my entire life.

For many Americans, he will be remembered as a civil rights leader, a presidential candidate, and a man who stood in the long shadow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But for me, and for many Black children who came of age in the hard, complicat…