FACT CHECK: Joe Biden Did NOT ‘Tell Black Voters to Reject Jesse Jackson’ During 1988 Campaign

Civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders this week, prompting many to share a false article claiming that Joe Biden “Told Black Voters To ‘Reject’ Jesse Jackson” during Biden’s first presidential campaign.

Rev. Jackson — who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 after she was the presumptive nominee — threw his support behind the Vermont senator this week in a bid to shore up support from black voters ahead of Tuesday primaries that include Michigan.

That endorsement has prompted many to share a news story — and related video — entitled “In His First Presidential Campaign, Joe Biden Told Black Voters To ‘Reject’ Jesse Jackson.”

What makes this bit of misinformation a little bit special is that it is being promoted by legitimate journalists, including a co-author of the article in question, BuzzFeed’s Henry Gomez.

Jesse Jackson this morning is endorsing Bernie Sanders. He and Biden have a complicated backstory — @darrensands and I wrote about that here: https://t.co/vVSqfSeCj4

— Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez) March 8, 2020

The basis for the claim is a 1986 speech at an NAACP convention during which then-Senator Biden said “You must reject the voices in this movement who tell black Americans to go it alone.”

The article goes on to claim that Biden “acknowledged” that the remarks were “about Jackson.”

“We must reject the voices in my party who say — and you’ve heard it time and again — ‘Much progress has been made, and now, now we must wait for the Reagan revolution to run its course,’” Biden said, adding “But just as I and many other white leaders reject the voices of those who are calling for caution, you must reject the voices in this movement who tell black Americans to go it alone, who tell you that coalitions don’t work anymore, that whites and Catholics and Jews no longer care about the problems of black America, that only black should represent black.”

He then went on to name Jesse Jackson — as one of the civil rights leaders who marched with the coalition Biden described.

Even reporters at the time mistook Biden’s reference, complicated by the fact that Biden made a different — but similar-sounding — criticism of Rev. Jackson during a press conference following the speech:

“Jackson has done some really phenomenally good things,” Biden told reporters after his speech. “But you can’t go out and say this is class warfare. You can’t try to pit the Rainbow Coalition, blacks, Hispanics, poor whites, gays, against the middle class.”

The fact is that Biden was not telling black voters to “reject” Jesse Jackson, he was telling them to reject voices like that of Minister Louis Farrakhan. But the remark was also a shot at Jackson, whose reluctance to disavow Nation of Islam leader drew criticism from many people — including a Vermont mayor named Bernie Sanders.

Rev. Jackson’s 1984 candidacy was marred by a pair of controversies involving slurs against Jewish people. The first was the slow and painful emergence of comments that Jackson made referring to Jews as “hymies” and New York City as “Hymietown” — comments he vehemently denied at first, and later admitted to and apologized for.

The second was his association with Farrakhan, which became toxic after anti-Semitic remarks from the minister emerged.

Neither controversy dissuaded Sanders from endorsing Rev. Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign. Jackson had endorsed Bernie’s losing campaign for governor in 1986. But along the way. Sanders did reluctantly criticize the civil rights leader on both counts.

At a press conference in 1987, Sanders was asked about the candidates in the upcoming election, and he replied “Although I have serious problems with Jesse Jackson, he seems to me the only national leader who’s coming close to talking about sane national priorities.”

A reporter later followed up by asking “What’s your number one serious problem with Jackson?”

With hesitation, Sanders replied “I had concerns about some of the alleged anti-Semitic remarks that were made, and you know, his unwillingness to speak out against some of the fanatics in the religious black movement.”

“Farrakhan?” the reporter asked.

“Yes, exactly,” Sanders replied.

And at a press conference devoted to his support for Jackson’s candidacy in March of 1988, reporters pressed Sanders to criticize Jackson, which he would only do reluctantly.

“Certainly the expression, the statement that he made, the ‘Hymietown’ a year ago was an unacceptable statement,” Bernie finally said, adding “The man is not a perfect human being.”

Those remarks had actually been made four years earlier.

Neither Biden nor Rev. Jackson would prevail in 1988, but three decades later, their story has found new relevance. Unfortunately, it’s a story that’s still hard for the press to keep straight.