“There is still a lot of work ahead of us” – Local delegates motivated after the Democratic Party Convention | Evening Digest

Amid the hustle and bustle of this year's Democratic National Convention, where thousands of journalists, politicians and delegates gathered in Chicago last week to announce Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential candidacy, Congressman Jonathan Jackson (D-1st) expressed nostalgia.

At age 18, he attended his first DNC ​​in San Francisco, where his father, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., delivered his famous “Rainbow Coalition” speech after completing his presidential candidacy in 1984.

“It brings back so many fond memories of people present and past,” Jackson told the Herald during this year’s convention, which he attended as a delegate.

“He ran for president and it was a moral crusade,” he said of his father's first run. “It wasn't a political campaign, it was something to do with the church and the grassroots. It was the culmination of a lifetime of civil rights activism.”

Although Jesse Jackson Sr. was initially written off as an outsider candidate when he first ran for president in 1984, he ultimately received about 18% of the vote in the primaries. His successive campaigns are also credited with lay the foundation for an increase in black voter turnout in the 1980s.

On the first evening of the congress, Jesse Jackson Sr. took the stage at the United Center for a standing ovation for this work. This was followed by a similar celebration of his legacy the evening before at the headquarters of his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, 930 E. 50th St.

“I think there are unbroken continuities (to) 60 years ago,” Jackson said of those two evenings honoring his father. “We have to recognize the work of all of these great civil rights leaders.”

Another of these leaders, Jackson continued, is Fannie Lou Hamera voting and women's rights activist who launched a massive voter registration drive for black residents in Mississippi in the 1960s. Hamer also co-founded the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party, which took on her state's segregationist Democratic Party.

“She laid the foundation,” he said. “My father picked it up about 20 years later.”

Above all, Hamer’s heir was also called this year by the Uncommitted movement, a group of about 30 delegates at the DNC who support the half a million People who voted undecided rather than supporting President Joe Biden's primary campaign in response to his support for Israel in the war against Gaza.

Jackson, now a politician himself, said he is excited about this year's DNC given the current state of the Democratic Party.

“It reflects America; it's young, it's diverse, it's growing,” he said. “It provides space and flexibility for new ideas and new people to continue to come in and expand the base.”

He added that he was relieved that women were taking “their rightful place” in political office.

For Harris to win the presidential election in November, Jackson said the party must conduct large-scale voter registration efforts, as his father and Hamer did, and make the fight against voter suppression a priority, citing a current law in Georgia that allows people to challenge another voter's eligibility.

As for his policy priorities this year, Jackson said his most important is to “avert war” as Israel continues to bomb Gaza and tensions between Israel and Lebanon rise. (Unlike the majority in the U.S. Congress, Jackson, a freshman in the House, is one of the few members of Congress calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.)

He also calls on the party to take a close look at America's role in mass immigration, pointing to the recent wave of immigrants to the United States from Central and South America, many of whom are fleeing economic and political instability.

“It starts with our economic and political policies,” he said. “We can create more peace in our hemisphere.”

Also attending the convention in person this year was state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-26), who was attending as a delegate for the first time. Buckner, a longtime friend of Harris (“we met through friends years ago”), said he was one of the first elected officials to endorse her 2019 presidential campaign — he was even slated to be a delegate for Harris before she dropped out of that race.

“That's poetic justice for me,” Buckner said. “I never officially declared myself a Harris delegate, although I was traveling as one.”

Buckner described the convention as “highly intense” and said his recent discussions with Harris had focused on what could be done about the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to ensure it “remains an independent body that does what is right for the people.”

Buckner noted that he was more optimistic about the Democratic Party than he had been since former President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, and said he spent part of the summer traveling to swing states as Harris' surrogate to drum up support for her.

House Representative Kimberly du Buclet (D-5th), another local delegate, said if she had five minutes to present one of Harris's presidential priorities, she would support strengthening economic development for Black and brown communities, funding public housing and early childhood education, climate change, maternal health and protecting abortion rights.

During four jam-packed days of speeches and delegate breakfasts, du Buclet said a highlight of the convention was a panel discussion hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) that discussed myriad issues affecting the black and brown community.

“It's always interesting to hear them talk about these issues on a national level,” du Buclet said, adding that she plans to “take some of those ideas and some of their thoughts … and bring them locally to my district and to the state of Illinois.”

For Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th), another first-time delegate, the DNC signaled that “the party is united” after a period of disunity leading up to President Joe Biden’s decision to suspend his re-election campaign earlier this summer.

With this united front, Robinson said, the party should focus its attention on the concerns of the middle class, such as Price gouging in the grocery storea lack of affordable housing and public safety, “fundamental issues that affect all of us, especially here in the city of Chicago.”

But the optimism for the party did not seem to extend beyond the United Center, where thousands of protesters gathered on the first and last nights of the DNC to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel's military and a permanent ceasefire in the region.

(All local elected officials who spoke to the Herald said they agreed with maintaining everyone's right to protest, but had little further comment.)

Looking ahead to Election Day in November, Robinson said the party has a big task ahead of it in mobilizing enough voters to defeat former President Donald Trump.

“We certainly have more work to do, and we have 70 days to do it,” Robinson said. “We have to get people to vote.”