An Interesting Footnote: Jesse Jackson in Berlin

by: psericks

Fri Jul 11, 2008 at 20:27:47 PM CDT

Here's a strange footnote from the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel: Berlin political leader Walter Mompers, 63, remembers a visit from a different prominent African-American politician, back in September of 1983. 

Mompers took then-Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson on a tour through the seedier side of West Berlin, the Bohemian neighborhood of Kreuzberg. 

Mompers remembers: 

[Jackson] was on a European tour, in order to encourage minority American ex-patriates to register to vote. [...]

Momper, then Social-Democratic district party chairman in Kreuzberg, brought Jackson into contact with punks, Turkish immigrants, and the scene on the Oranienstraße.  Jackson missed the chance for a meeting with then-Mayor Richard von Weizsäcker only due to time constraints.

Jackson visited the Berlin Wall and held a press conference in a circus tent on the Mariannenplatz.  Of course, the associate of Martin Luther King never became president.

For some reason, I imagine Obama's visit, twenty-five years later, will be slightly different.  New York Times coverage of Jackson's 1983 visit, and some erie similiarities below...

The New York Times in 1983 described "a walking tour through the run-down Kreuzberg neighborhood, which hugs the concrete barrier."  Jackson explained that the reason for his visit was ''to gain a reserve in credibility by looking at European peace and security options.''

Jackson's tour through Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands was unconventional, including visits to army bases, urging African-American service members to register to vote:

But he has largely shunned meetings with Western European supporters of the missile deployment, such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and has concentrated on its foes. On Saturday, Mr. Jackson is to meet with Willy Brandt, the chairman of the Opposition Social Democratic Party. He was unable to make a projected visit to Poland because the Government did not grant him a visa.

He canceled a trip to the Soviet Union after the downing of a South Korean airliner by a Soviet fighter. He missed a plane this morning and failed to keep an appointment with Mayor Richard von Weizsäcker of West Berlin.

In another 1983 article, the New York Times describes Jackson's visit to London, "following the traditional trail of White House aspirants on a ''fact-finding'' pilgrimage to Europe."  It's interesting to think that this sort of foreign travel was once more common than it now is.

But in London too, as in Berlin, Jackson's tour had a populist bent:

Unlike others who preceded him to Europe for the ostensible purpose of broadening their grasp of foreign affairs, Mr. Jackson followed a trail that led him away from the halls of power and into the back streets and buildings of London's disaffected poor. [...]

'We focus on the feet of government, not the heads of government,'' Mr. Jackson remarked toward the end of the first day of his European trip. [...]

''I already know what the leaders of Europe think about these issues. Now I want to find out what the people think.'' [...]

The people of Brixton appeared more perplexed than awed by the sight of the tall American, surrounded by reporters and television crews, who walked their streets this morning.

Definitely from another era.