An Ode to Jesse

Never quite a dandy. His clothes were overtly of his time. a look-at-me flair.

not a uniform, not quite cultural appropriation. Clout and kinship.

in the middle of all of it. Hunkered down. bundled against the cold. An admonition to disregard personal comfort, to disrupt the peace.

painted — a picture of the time, the people and the politics.


That’s how Pulitzer Prize-winning Robin Givhan memorialized Jesse Jackson through an obituary written through a fashion and style lens.