SPEECHES PROVIDE THE CORE OF HIS STRENGTH

July 19, 1988 | Philadelphia Inquirer

By Andrew Cassel, Inquirer Convention Bureau 

Let me express my joy, and my delight . . . .

The opening is slow, the words coming in a measured, leisurely cadence. With his eyes down he shuffles his notes a bit, examining his text as he begins to carefully explain, analyze and probe.

Fifteen minutes later, or maybe 30, he is shouting, roaring, sending phrases to the balcony in bursts.

Put hope in your brains! Not dope in your veins!

And the audience – if it is the right audience – is sending his words right back, calling to him, asking him to “Teach!” “Tell it!” “Come on with it!” as they cheer and echo his rhymes.

Days later, weeks later, the echoing will continue. Which is precisely what makes the Rev. Jesse Jackson arguably the most effective orator in current American politics.

Whatever he has achieved, for good or ill, he has achieved through his words. His extraordinary ability to bind an audience, to pull its emotional strings and carry it up or down, is the core – and some would say the limit – of his strength as a politician. It has made him the most prominent black American since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It is a style that millions have come to know over the last year, and that millions more will see tonight as Jackson addresses the Democratic National Convention.

He is a master of allusion, of rhythm and word play who has sown slogans like oats across the country.

Down with dope – up with hope!

I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me!

We’re getting better, not bitter!

But his strength at the podium is not simply inspiration. His is an old and well understood art form, native to the South but practiced all over the country. He has adapted and broadened it to suit the needs of his long-running campaign.

“The pattern is pretty much that of the Southern black preacher,” said Dr. Fred Craddock, who teaches the art of preaching to students at Emory University’s School of Theology. “He starts off very thoughtful, slow, sometimes even reading the notes.”

He uses the time not only to outline his themes but to feel out the audience, get the sense of the crowd.

“Certain lines will be tossed out to get reaction,” he said. “He will

throw out some pretty good lines to see whether it’s a group that is on his side, or one that he has to bring around.”

When it feels right, he will begin what Southern black preachers call “the whoop” and what Appalachian white preachers call “wind-sucking,” Craddock said. Sentences get shorter. Phrases alliterate. Words rhyme.

“It’s in small pieces that an audience can repeat back to him,” he said. ”These are strong memory devices, either biblical phrases or alliteration, and phrases together that sound alike but build a bit.”

One of Jackson’s favorites, and most effective, is a kind of poem about poor people:

Poor people are not lazy – they work hard every day. They clean the floors and wash the dishes in the fast-food restaurants – they work every day. They catch the early bus – they work every day. They clean out the bed pans in the hospitals – they work every day. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick – they work every day.

Passages like that serve a definite purpose in the preacher’s art, Craddock said.

“It’s called the audience ownership of a message. It’s very similar to the old style of teaching a hymn to a congregation.” As they pick up his refrain, they take possession of the speech themselves.

“When you read one of Jesse’s speeches, actually the content ends about 12 minutes before the speech does,” Craddock said. But by that time, “the energy and the power is away from the speaker and with the listener.”

“A lot of white folks are attracted to it because it has passion,” Craddock said. “It also frightens some, especially when you get a large crowd of people and that crowd becomes active, because they’re not used to people being active in church.”

How does Jackson rate as a practitioner of the form?

“He is very good,” Craddock said. “There are some who are better at it – but they’re not in politics.”

CAMPAIGN ’88: THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION