Reverend Martin Deppe is one of the founding members of Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rev. Jesse Jackson was assigned to be the National Director of Operation Breadbasket while a student at Chicago Theological Seminary. Reverend Deppe is the author of the only full history of Breadbasket. — Operation Breadbasket: An Untold Story of Civil Rights in Chicago, 1966-1971.
He attended the Rainbow Push Convention this past July and had many reflections.
It was a bright Sunday afternoon in Woodlawn, Chicago, on July 16, 2023. In the sanctuary of the Apostolic Church of God and before a crowd of 3000, including the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, Santita Jackson, daughter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., sang her heart out in tribute to her dad. Turning toward him on the dais, she closed each loving phrase with the words “To God Be The Glory.” Her electrifying long-held high notes lifted us all in awe.
Santita, a Howard University classmate of the VP (Vice President), was singing immediately following Kamala Harris’s strong address to this gathering of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. This was just one of several events of the annual convention, which this year was celebrating the 40th anniversary of Rev. Jackson’s historic run for President of the United States in 1984. Kamala recalled the honking horns and thumbs up as drivers acknowledged her “Run, Jesse, Run” bumper stick as she drove to her law school classes back in 1983/84.
The VP had been introduced earlier by Jonathan Jackson, Bobby Rush’s successor as U.S. Representative of Illinois’s first district. It was a stirring speech focusing on the critical 31 tie-breaking votes the VP has made in the Senate of truly bad legislation, the most such votes of any VP in history.
Also being celebrated on this day was the introduction and first speech of Rev. Jackson’s newly appointed successor, Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes III, Pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church, Dallas, and distinguished civil rights activist. In the relaxed moment following Santita’s stirring solo, Rev. Jackson’s wife, Jackie, made her way along the front pew shaking hands and embracing acquaintances. She spotted Rev. Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, sitting in a wheelchair right next to me at the aisle’s end, and she gave him a hug, then leaned toward me with another embrace.
Jackie then beckoned son Jonathan who came right over to us. She whispered to him whereupon he immediately led me up to the stage and motioned me to sit next to his father, Rev. Jackson. After a quick greeting and hug, I sat down with him just in time for the first words of Rev. Haynes’s fine-tuned inaugural address. It was an emotional moment for me, realizing that to Jesse and his family, I represent so many of his colleagues, no longer with us, who were part of his very first days in Operation Breadbasket, the forerunner to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. I was stunned and honored all at once. During Haynes’ speech, I leaned over to Jesse and remarked, “You have made an excellent choice in Rev. Haynes.” As we stood to applaud Haynes’ remarks, he came over to hug Jesse. I then welcomed and thanked him and quickly exited the stage back to my seat in the second row. During the interlude of music, I left the church to drive home through the thick Canadian smoke hovering in and over our town.
That was Sunday. Hours earlier Rev. Jackson was feted with speeches and song at Rainbow PUSH’s regular Saturday worship/rally. This event, held at the former KAM Israel Temple on South Drexel and longtime headquarters of Rainbow PUSH, continues a weekly event that began with “Saturday Breadbasket” over 50 years ago. When Rev. Jackson was brought in and lifted to the stage in his wheel chair, he spotted me sitting in the front row and motioned for me to come to him. I went up on stage for a brief embrace and words and returned to my seat, struck by his need to claim a relationship representing his transformative beginnings in Chicago Breadbasket.
Most moving in this streamed event was the address by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Marcia Fudge. She praised Rev. Jackson, recognizing his influence on her from the days when, as a fledging law student, she worked in his 1984 campaign for the presidency. She continued her address with eloquent words about implementing the Fair Housing Act passed just days after Dr. King’s assassination, another part of Jesse’s legacy. In the darkness and danger of our time, it was refreshing and relieving to know that we have someone as committed and competent in this singularly influential position in Washington, D.C. When Santita Jackson was recognizing distinguished guests, some from as far away as South Africa, I was surprised when she asked, “Dr. Deppe, would you stand? When I was a toddler, this man came to my parent’s apartment in Hyde Park and talked with Dad about Operation Breadbasket. He was my dad’s colleague and teacher.”This unexpected recognition took me aback.
Back at my front row seat, I was startled once again when Bathsheba Wyatt, niece of my Breadbasket colleague, the late Rev. Claude Wyatt, and long-time Rainbow PUSH volunteer, came up to me and placed on my lap a two-feet-long encased statuette covered in some dust. I had long forgotten the presentation of this award. It was made to me by Rev. Jackson at a Saturday Rainbow PUSH rally back in 2017 on the publication of my book, Operation Breadbasket, an Untold Story of Civil Rights in Chicago, 1966-1971. Rev. Jackson announced the actual award and plaque were not ready but would be given to me later. So, six years later, it suddenly appeared on my lap!
The clergy luncheon the following Tuesday was the last event of this memorable Rainbow PUSH convention that I attended. I had had enough emotional moments and decided to stay at my table #23. But I did stray from my seat during the long program and slow-served meal. Seeing Jonathan standing in the back, I walked up to him and asked, “Jonathan, who decides the speakers for next year’s Democratic National Convention here in Chicago?” He replied, “You know, Rev. Deppe, it’s the President’s party.” I told him I thought his magnificent speech introducing the VP on Sunday should be circulated to key people around the President. He nodded with a smile, “That’s already been done.” Table-hopping, I then sat down with retired Congressman Bobby Rush. We shared some memories before I asked him a similar question about Jonathan’s speech, and he said. “We’re on this. Jonathan and I talk every week.” Then it was back to my seat and a now lukewarm entrée!
The highlights of this luncheon were the very personal words of Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledging Rev. Jackson’s profound influence on him. Then, Rev. Jackson stood, with help, and led the audience in some of his famous chants, beginning with “I am Somebody” and concluding, “Fight back, fight back!” The inaugural sermon of the new Rainbow PUSH leader, Rev. Haynes, went to the mountaintop.
On Sunday, Haynes spoke eloquently, with intellect and passion, about the challenges before us. But on Tuesday, he preached, and with a short cryptic text from the prophet Malachi he let loose to our predominantly African American audience. Malachi weeps because he sees his sin. He is “woke.” If you are asleep, you cannot see the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the stranger, the bullied, the prisoner. We can see only if we are woke! Wow! If Rev. Haynes’ organizational skills are half as strong as his oratorical gifts, Rainbow PUSH is in good hands.
The convention program prepared by N’DIGO publisher and my long-time colleague from Breadbasket days, Hermene Hartman, was nowhere to be seen. She told me Rainbow PUSH did not have the money to print it, so she was in the process of raising funds to send it out to attendees post facto! It includes an article she solicited from me on the origins of Rainbow PUSH in Operation Breadbasket. I hope to see a copy of this commemorative program before six years is up!
What a privilege what an honor for me, to have lived an arc of history that bends toward justice through the life and witness of my friend and colleague, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. As Santita’s lovely voice boomed out, “To God Be The Glory!”
The Rev. Martin Deppe
4 August 2023
Chicago, Illinois
