Keep Fighting.

Or, the one where the author met Reverend Jesse Jackson

I just learned the news that Reverend Jesse Jackson has passed on to his glory at the age of 84. I know he could be polarizing, as all great men and women can be, but he once lit a fire in nineteen-year-old me, and it moves me to this day.

Continuing my education would be on my shoulders, I’d known that since I was in grade school. I didn’t have any guidance or assistance from my parents, so I found a college that a) I could afford on my waitress salary, b) offered local scholarships I could win and c) was close to aunts and cousins. That ended up being Dixie College, in St. George, Utah.

I’m southern and white, so the name “Dixie” washed over me. That’s on me, I know. When I arrived in my packed-to-the-windows Buick Skylark, I was horror-struck to see Confederate symbols everywhere. The mascot, which definitely wasn’t visible in my application materials, was a confederate soldier. You know, the traitors who lost the Civil War. That guy.

I immediately started complaining about this to every faculty member I could and eventually wrote an Op-Ed in the student paper; “scathing” is a term I heard it called. There were death threats, public debates where grown-ass men, dressed in full confederate gear and draped in the loser’s flag would scream in my face, call me everything under the sun. I worked for the Arts and Letters department as a receptionist, and one memorable day, a blonde woman (a proto-Karen) who couldn’t have been more than 30, crowded me at my desk to scream at me that I was ruining tradition.

This literal child (me, a teenager) appears to be one who can be intimidated… that’s how she tricks you. Because she cannot be.

Ma’am. You’re from UTAH and you want to yell at me about traditional southern values?

My faculty adviser for the school paper learned that the Reverend and his youngest daughter Jacqueline would be speaking at a convention in nearby Las Vegas, and sent him a copy of my Op Ed with a phone number to the school newspaper’s office. He actually called, said he’d read it, and told me to keep up the good fight.

A minute of his time made a lifetime mark on my spirit. What’s a little strife for me when that flag symbolized so much hatred and oppression for the other students who were Black? There’s right and there’s wrong, and it’s truly just that simple. If a “tradition” is rooted in another’s oppression, that tradition needs to be tossed.

I’ve never forgotten how special that made me feel, how it kept that fire burning all these years. I hope I never forget that we need to keep fighting the good fight. Thank you, Reverend, for dedicating your life to the fight and inspiring others to do so, as well.

And yeah, they changed that damned flag.