Speaking at the Just Economy Conference on April 15, 2026, National Community Reinvestment Coalition President and CEO Jesse Van Tol spoke of the legacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson as a call to all to be leaders during these changing times.
Transcript:
NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.
You know, the staff teased me about my walk-up song. That was Andre 3000 and Beyonce – their version of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. And one of my staff said the song was giving James Bond with a little horror, which I thought was appropriate, because my speech, like a James Bond film, is at its core a love story with the backdrop of imminent danger and a big threat to humanity as we know it. Last year, I told you the story of Gary. It was a story about my childhood. The story about the moment we’re in. About how the people now running the country took the myth of the antebellum South, stripped it of its geographic specificity, and applied it to the whole country.
They used it to turn people against each other to stoke resentment. Ultimately, it was a story about how powerful a story can be. Yeah, the plantation myth or the Lost Cause was a powerful story that motivated people, even if it was a lie. And you saw yesterday from the stage an example of how that has played out. You see in the Lost Cause myth, White people were the real victims of the Civil War. That before the federal government intervened, things were fine, idyllic even, and that it was the government putting a thumb on the scale for Black people that was the real problem.
The theory is reflected today on a broader level in the Trump administration’s approach to civil rights, which you heard articulated from the stage yesterday. When HUD asked us to speak, we had mixed feelings. We knew we were likely to hear things that we didn’t agree with, even antithetical to our mission, and yet, we felt it was important that you know that you understand how these ideas are being articulated, weaponized and the full implications of them. You heard within it a not-so-subtle threat that the administration believes that the real problem is the efforts of those of us who believe that the only reasonable interpretation of what has happened in America is that Black and Brown and Indigenous people have gotten a raw deal. That the racial wealth gap is real. And that our communities continue to experience discrimination and disparate outcomes in a variety of ways.
Now, I want to be clear, NCRC will always engage with ideas that we don’t agree with, because we have seen how they have power, and we believe that we must confront that head-on, to look them squarely in the eyes so that we can understand what exactly they stand for. But we are not afraid. Our courage will not waver, and our morals are not for sale.
Stories are powerful. Stories can shape the world. They’re how we connect with other people, they’re how we share our values. And so I want to tell you a different set of stories than the ones you heard yesterday. After my speech last year, one of my staff came up to me and said, Where do you come up with all these stories, Jesse, except the inflection was a little bit more sort of an implication that I make them up. Well, it turns out that the stories come to you because it turns out that life just keeps “lifeing”, as the kids say.
So this is a recent story, and it’s a story about me, and it’s a little raw, so if I have trouble getting through it, please lift me up. Many of you saw me last year at this conference, struggling to move. I wheeled around the event on a scooter and sometimes even a crutch. In fact, I spent much of last year dealing with and rehabbing from that injury. But you probably don’t know the back story. A few days before Christmas in late 2024, I checked myself into Suburban Hospital. My left leg had grown increasingly red, increasingly swollen. In fact, it was not the first time I had seen a doctor about my leg. This was the second trip to the emergency room and the fifth doctor that I had visited. It started with a trip to my primary care doctor. My leg is red and swollen, I explained. It hurts a little. I’ve had a low-grade fever, I noted. Examined my leg, expressed some concern, decided that I was at risk, in part, because of my travel schedule for deep vein thrombosis, and suggested that I immediately check into the ER to have it looked at. I visited Georgetown ER immediately. Five hours later discharged, slightly elevated reading on some of my blood work made the doctor suggest that I see a cardiologist immediately. I go to see a cardiologist. Nothing is wrong with your heart, he says, but I am concerned about that ongoing fever. Go back to see your primary care doctor. I go back to see my primary care doctor. I still have a low-grade fever. My leg is red and swollen. He checks me for walking pneumonia. He advises me to keep my leg elevated, and if it gets worse, to go into the ER. I go home, it gets worse. It gets a lot worse. What none of these doctors had noticed, and which I had not noticed, was a seemingly innocuous callus on my foot that hid an infection growing underneath. My second entry to the ER was conclusive, the infection had spread to my leg, a condition known as cellulitis. After over a week of misdiagnosis and, quite likely, some medical malpractice, I finally had an answer, but my troubles didn’t end there. The first doctor I saw in the ER put me on the wrong antibiotic, and for the next few days, the infection continued, seemingly unabated. During this time, my body staged a full revolt. Food wouldn’t stay down. My fever at times became intense, unbearable. Now, some of you know me, make my living as an advocate for others, and I am not shy, some might even say blunt, and I’m not known, or I am known for a more than healthy distrust of authority. In fact, I’m known to challenge authority on many occasions, but when it comes to myself, I am the last person to speak up about discomfort or concerns, and as I lay there in my hospital bed, Jesse Van Tol is: ‘I’m fine, nothing to worry about. I’m sure the doctors will be in soon. They know what they’re doing.’ Meanwhile, my wife became worried. She frequently informed the nurses that I seemed to be having trouble, that my fevers were worse, that my breathing seemed labored. The nurse assured me that they would let the doctors know. Finally, things came to a head. Seems that in my condition, I was nearly septic when I entered the hospital, that some organ function was compromised. Unbeknownst to me, fluid built up within my lungs. My blood pressure soared. 160, 170, 180, my pulse was 130, my oxygen saturation started to fall into the 80s. Through it all, I insisted I was okay. My beautiful wife, Lauren, who some of you have met here at the conference, is quite the opposite from me when it comes to health. First of all, Lauren is the type of person who goes to see the doctor when she has a cough. I don’t know that she’s met a disease yet that she didn’t think she had at some point. And second of all, when Lauren sets her sights on something. She gets it done. She is a pugnacious advocate for herself and for others. As I lay on the hospital bed vomiting, pale, sweaty, Lauren, who knows better, says to me, ‘You’re not fine, you’re delirious.’ And Lauren starts to get loud. Lauren starts to go to work. Armed with ChatGPT in one hand and a call to my mother, who is herself a doctor, with the other, Lauren goes to work. Now, whoever thought the best metaphor for a certain kind of behavior was a bull in a china shop. Never saw Lauren go to work more like a cupcake with a chainsaw, sweet, but dangerous. As Lauren mobilized teams of doctors swoop like a medical drama, they get to work, they stabilize me. I survive.
The rest of the story is long and involved, maybe a story for another conference, but a byproduct of my infection was a weakened foot, which, in the aftermath, I further injured, resulting in several broken bones and a need to repair my Achilles. Many of you saw me in a boot; all told, I spent over three weeks in the hospital, endured five surgeries, went through months of physical therapy. I stand before you today because one woman, Lauren, wouldn’t take no for an answer. I stand here today because she spoke up.
At a previous conference, I shared with you the story of her mother, Bonita, and how she was a victim of medical racism at many points in her life, ultimately resulting in her death of cancer at age 68. And because of that experience, Lauren knew, Lauren understood, that she could not sit idly by while people supposed to protect me and my health, overlooked my condition. Now, Lauren could have trusted the doctors, and it would have been perfectly natural for her to accept the limitation that she was not the authority in the room, that she was not a doctor, had not gone to medical school.
But Lauren knew. Lauren understood.
People told her she was wrong, but she knew she knew something was wrong. Did not hesitate to challenge the things that she knew were wrong. Not a doctor, but she knew she understood the patient was lying on the bed, dying, and she did not hesitate, did not doubt, she went to work.
You’re going to have to wait to hear the moral of that story while I introduce another character.
Been reflecting on the Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr, a great hero of mine who recently passed away. Some of you know that I was named after Jesse Jackson. My father, whose here today, with my mother. Was a delegate for Jesse Jackson for president, 1984 the year that I was born. And my parents liked my name. And some of you know that Jesse Jackson was a great friend of NCRC. That he spoke here at the conference many times. That, in fact, he and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition took office space with us in our building, and that my predecessor, John Taylor, served on his board.
And so many times in my career, I had the opportunity to see him at work. Reverend Jackson was among the hardest-working people I have ever met. He would fly into DC on his way to South Africa. He would fly to far-flung parts of the country. To West Virginia to stand with the coal miners.
He was an ally, a leader for so many causes, and he worked tirelessly. After the Reverend recently passed away, I was reflecting upon his legacy, and I wondered in a daydream what would have happened if Jesse had not been called to leadership. If you can imagine Jesse Jackson standing at the Lorraine Motel in the aftermath of Dr King’s assassination, had just said, ‘Look, it’s not my job to heal the nation.’
Reverend Jackson could have moved on with his life, and because we know now how that history turned out, it is natural to believe that it was destiny for him to act as he did. But if you think of that moment, Dr King had just been shot dead in front of him, and it was not how he was murdered, but why. They killed him for speaking out, for his moral leadership, for challenging authority, for not sitting back and accepting the circumstance of Black people in this country.
And so in fact, the Reverend Jackson’s leadership was the most unnatural thing for anybody to have done. First of all, at that moment, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, he was just 26 years old. And second of all, he was there as his mentor, the leader of the movement, was killed because of the power of his speech and the moral clarity of his ideas. The consequence of leadership was not esoteric for the Reverend Jesse Jackson. It was a real and present danger.
And yet Jesse went to work. Unlike my wife Lauren, he didn’t have the opportunity to save the patient. But he went to work, and he spent his life pursuing that work, culminating in his historic run for president in 1984 and again in 1988 when he won 11 primaries and changed American politics, paving the way for the historic victory of Barack Obama in 2008.
Over the course of his life, Jesse Jackson was critiqued time and again. And these critiques, some fair, many unfair, are revealing I think about how we think about leadership. I bring it up because I think it reveals something about how we expect others to fight our battles for us. Deeply revealing about how we, as a movement and as a nation, expect courage and leadership to come from some other place. About how we place our expectations upon others. Most common critique I hear of Jesse Jackson was that he didn’t keep the civil rights movement going. That he failed the movement. I call bullshit, as someone said yesterday, and as Dr. Benjamin said so eloquently from the stage.
Reverend Jackson didn’t fail the movement. We did. In the aftermath of our great victories in the 60s and 70s, we went to work. We took our victories, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and we went to work. We professionalized the movement. We built nonprofits, and we did the work. Not as a movement, but as an industry. But as we built, we became victims of our own success. The nonprofit corporation itself, modeled after private corporations, has its flaws and limitations. To illustrate this, I want you to imagine a scenario for a moment. Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernath, and Bayard Rustin are having a conversation about tactics, and Bayard, the great tactician of the movement, said, ‘I think we should do a march from Selma to Montgomery’. And Martin says, ‘What are the risks in doing that?’ And Bayard says, ‘Well, we might get beaten and bloodied, and we’ll probably all get arrested.’ Ralph Abernathy says, ‘I don’t know. I doubt our D and O insurance will cover that.’ King says, ‘And how will Ellen Jesse feel about it? Maybe we should add it to our strategic plan discussions this fall.’
Now I’m not here to tell you that nonprofits are not effective. I lead a nonprofit that is itself a coalition of nonprofits, but I am here to tell you that the federal government is not the only institution we must rebuild in the wake of this moment. We have to rebuild our institutions so that they can be more agile and more courageous. We have to rebuild our moral voice, and that starts with the stories that we tell. You see as a field, we have spent significant time and energy making the economic case for our work. The cost of racism. The opportunities within our communities. And we must still make those arguments, because they are good arguments. But we live in a moment where more than that is required. And much more is required if you see and understand what is happening all around us. We see it when our president compares Black people to apes. We see it when policy treats entire communities like targets instead of people. We see it when leadership treats the rule of law as optional, when inconvenient. We see it when our government looks at its own citizens, its own people, and sees a battlefield. We see it when our government shoots first and asks questions later.
As I travel the country, a sense of despair, a sense of what is to be done is all around. A desire for somebody to come forth and save us. Which person will speak up, which party will win, which candidate will emerge? I’m here to tell you that the patient is lying on the table and that they are dying, and that the patient is all of us. The patient is your next-door neighbor. The patient is our multicultural democracy and whether it will live to see tomorrow.
And I have news to you, for you, there are no doctors of democracy coming to save us. And if there are prophets waiting to emerge, let us not risk the judgment that we sat idly by because it was not our job and we did not know what to do. The only doctors of democracy are we, the people. That much the founders had right, as deeply flawed as they were, and the burden falls to some of us more than others.
Let me put it to you this way. If you’re not the patient, then you must be the doctor, then you must be Lauren, then you must be Jesse. In that speech Jesse gave at the Democratic Convention, he said two words over and over and over again. He said, ‘I understand. I understand. I understand,’ he said. Jesse Jackson was every man. The story of America was Jesse Jackson and Jesse Jackson was the story of America. His struggle was our struggle. But the problem here in Washington is that they do not understand. They don’t understand what it’s like out there in America, because they live in a different America. You’ve got to make them understand. You’ve got to tell them about the America as you experience it. And just as that myth the old South was a powerful story, so too are our stories powerful. We too can tell a story about a greater America, but one that does not exist in the past. We too can tell a story about a greater America, but ours does not set neighbors against neighbors. We too are America.
I’m not here to tell you that the entire burden of saving our democracy lies with you, and I’m not even here to tell you that words are enough, that telling a better story is the solution to our crisis. But I am here to tell you that there are moments in our lives where you have a chance to be Jesse, not me, the other one, you wouldn’t want to… There are moments where you have a chance to be Lauren. There are moments where you have a chance to speak up and to take action. Each of us has sat by in the face of injustice. Each of us has led a leader, a colleague or friend take those stabs in the back, too afraid of the sacrifice it takes to lead. Each of us is guilty of wishful thinking that someone will come forth, some authority, some outside force will emerge to save us. But each of us has opportunities, in big moments and in small, to save the patient, whoever that might be. To lead with moral courage. To tell a more powerful story, and to take the actions needed to make it come to life.
I want to close with this thought. I’m a fan in many of my speeches of bad aphorisms. And one such bad aphorism is the idea that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Have you heard this one before? Turns out, it’s not true. Turns out, you catch as many or more flies with vinegar as honey. And since I’m kind of a piss and vinegar type of speaker, I’ve used this to great advantage. We can catch flies with honey or vinegar if we must.
But there is another, another aphorism that I was reflecting on as I wrote this speech, and that’s the idea that it is always darkest before the dawn. It turns out that this too is bullshit. It varies a little bit based on the time of year and your time zone, but it turns out that it’s darkest around midnight. Who knew? You’ve accepted this as gospel truth your entire lives. You were lied to. But the definition is psychological. You see, we feel most alone, most in the dark, just before dawn, in the middle of the night, our eyes have slowly adjusted, and we cannot tell that it is getting lighter. By your actions, I believe that it will not be midnight America, but that dawn will come. Come hell or high water, we will make that sunrise.
As Jesse said, ‘Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high. Stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender. Keep hope alive.’
And if I might dare to suggest one amendment so that we act with the agency of the leaders that we seek to be, we must bring hope alive.
Bring hope alive. Thank you very much.
Applause.
