Jesse Jackson and the Symbolic Politics of Black Christendom
- 1 July 1985
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
- Vol. 480 (1) , 89-105
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716285480001008
Abstract
This article examines the significance of the Reverend Jesse Jackson's bid for the Democratic party's presidential nomination. Jackson's candidacy represents a new use of political revivalism, an old evangelical political praxis recast in the modalities of African American Christian culture. This praxis is an aspect of American political culture that has often been overlooked because of past misunderstandings of American folk religion in general, and black Christianity in particular, as captives of an otherworldly and privatized spirituality. This article contends that black Christianity has an identifiable and coherent political style with both passive and active moods. The dominant manifestations of these moods are, respectively, political cynicism and political revivalism, which are the consequence of the correct folk perception that it is impossible to reason with the purveyors of the absurdities of racial injustice. A critical assessment of black Christianity's political symbolic capital seems appropriate.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Democracy in AmericaPublished by University of Chicago Press ,2000
- Sincerity and AuthenticityPublished by Harvard University Press ,1972