Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson on Thursday announced that he will take time off from public life to “revive my spirit and reconnect with my family” after admitting that he fathered a child with a woman who worked for his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Facing imminent publication of a story in the National Enquirer, Jackson after midnight Wednesday released a short statement acknowledging an extramarital relationship and the child, who is now 20 months old.
“This is no time for evasions, denials or alibis,” Jackson’s statement said. “I fully accept responsibility and I am truly sorry for my actions.”
According to his spokesman, the girl and her mother, who now reside in California, receive $3,000 a month in child support.
“As her mother does, I love this child very much and have assumed responsibility for her emotional and financial support since she was born,” Jackson said in his statement.
Jackson, a 59-year-old Baptist minister who has been married for 38 years, spent Thursday out of public view, accepting visits to his South Side home from a string of ministers, Rainbow/PUSH colleagues and family members, including two visits from his congressman son.
A meeting of the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is scheduled for Friday, board members said. What Jackson’s planned break from public life will mean for the coalition–of which he is founder and president–is certain to be high on the agenda.
In political circles, news of the development on Thursday drew attention away from confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee John Ashcroft, whom Jackson had vehemently opposed, and from a mass march Jackson had planned to lead on Saturday, protesting George W. Bush’s inauguration and the Florida vote. It was undecided late Thursday whether Jackson will proceed with plans for the march in Tallahassee.
The news also raised questions about Rainbow/PUSH and Jackson’s financial arrangements with the woman, which includes the child support and a $40,000 payment that a Jackson spokesman described as “relocation” reimbursement for her move from Washington, D.C., to California.
Aides said President Clinton was aware of the revelations about Jackson, but that the pair had not yet spoken. “I’m sure they’ll be in touch over the days and weeks ahead,” White House spokesman Jake Siewert said. “This is a family matter that Rev. Jackson has vowed to deal with on his own, and our thoughts and prayers are with him.”
Clinton had called on Jackson, a protege of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as a spiritual guide during Clinton’s own scandal with an intern in 1998, a period, it now appears, that coincided with Jackson’s relationship with his aide.
In his statement, Jackson did not name the woman, but his New York public relations representatives did not dispute news reports that identified her as Karin Stanford, a 39-year-old political scientist and the former director of Rainbow/PUSH’s Washington office.
It’s not clear when the two met, although their meeting likely grew out of a longtime academic interest of Stanford’s.
As a doctoral candidate in political science at Howard University, Stanford focused her dissertation on Jackson and his role in foreign policy, Stanford’s dissertation adviser said Thursday.
“She didn’t know him,” said Ronald Walters, who advised her on her dissertation and now teaches at the University of Maryland. “She was interested in foreign policy, and this was a topic that hadn’t been done and made sense. She was a very good student, very smart.”
The dissertation examined Jackson’s diplomatic efforts overseas, but included no interviews with him. They didn’t meet until after Stanford went on to teach political science and African-American studies at the University of Georgia, and she decided to expand the work into a book–“Beyond the Boundaries: Reverend Jesse Jackson in International Affairs,” published in 1997.
Jackson later hired Stanford to direct the Washington office of Rainbow/PUSH, which also has offices in New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Atlanta. A Jackson spokesman would not comment on how much Stanford was paid.
In the Rainbow/PUSH offices, a romantic relationship between Stanford and Jackson long had been rumored, according to a former employee who declined to be named. Both Jackson and Stanford adamantly denied it, the former staffer said.
In mid-1998, in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal, Jackson urged the nation to forgive Clinton. “If there are any among us who have not known the trials and tribulations and temptations, then throw a rock,” Jackson said at one point.
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A December 1998 photograph taken in the White House shows Jackson, Stanford, Clinton and two other Rainbow/PUSH leaders. Stanford would have been about four months’ pregnant at that point. The baby was born in May 1999.
Citing a desire to continue to work for economic justice, Jackson in March 1999 announced he would not be a candidate for president. He had run unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988.
Later in 1999, Stanford and the baby moved to Los Angeles, a move financed by $40,000 in “relocation” payments from Rainbow/PUSH, according to Lou Colasuonno, a New York publicist hired by Jackson.
In Los Angeles, she works as a research consultant for Rainbow/PUSH, Colasuonno said, although he was unable to provide details about why she moved.
Colasuonno described the moving fee as “not particularly high” considering today’s costs of relocating. An IRS spokeswoman said tax rules would not prohibit a nonprofit from paying an employee’s moving expenses.
Stanford also was hired 15 months ago to serve as a consultant for Yucaipa, a supermarket company. Jackson recommended that company officials hire Stanford, company spokesman Ari Swiller said. “He suggested Karin,” Swiller said, declining to reveal any details regarding her financial arrangements with the firm.
At her house in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, Stanford did not answer the door. A neighbor said Stanford was out of town. Dalton Stamps, a neighbor and Realtor, said he sold Stanford the beige, 5-bedroom house with a swimming pool for $360,000 about 13 months ago.
As the news unfolded on Thursday, Jackson aides visiting his home in the Jackson Park Highlands and at the South Side Rainbow/PUSH headquarters avoided clusters of waiting reporters. A security guard allowed no one beyond the entrance of PUSH. Food was delivered to the house.
Cirilo McSween, vice chairman of Operation PUSH’s board of directors was among those huddled at Jackson’s large, white and black-trimmed house in the elegant, largely African-American neighborhood.
“Nothing was determined today,” said McSween. “Certainly we are discussing it in an organizational matter as to whether anything ought to happen to him in terms of leaving, not leaving, and how to replace him. … Certainly we are rallying to him all the way. The board is totally supportive of him.”
Jackson’s wife, Jackie, and their adult children had been told of the situation “some time ago,” Colasuonno said. Jackson said in his statement: “It has been an extremely painful, trying and difficult time for them. I have asked God and each one of them to forgive me, and I thank each of them for their grace and understanding throughout this period of tribulation. We have prayed together and through God’s grace we have been reconciling.”
Early in the afternoon, Jackson’s two sons, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Jonathan Jackson, appeared at the home. They didn’t speak to reporters but the congressman released a statement.
“Over the course of nearly four decades of marriage, my father and our family have survived many dangers and endured many crises and, with God’s help, we hope to endure this one as well.”
Rev. Jackson’s statement also apologized to his supporters, alluding briefly to his own birth to an unmarried 16-year-old in South Carolina. His father was a neighbor married to another woman.
“No doubt, many close friends and supporters will be disappointed in me. I ask for their forgiveness, understanding and prayers. I was born of these circumstances and I know the importance of growing up in a nurturing, supportive and protected environment, so I am determined to give my daughter and her mother the privacy they both deserve.”