If you’ve been in Chicago for any period of time, you’ve seen the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and odds are right by his side was Bishop Tavis Grant. When Jackson was helping residents of Concordia Place Apartments take a stand against management and maintenance of the 297-unit apartment complex in the city’s Eden Green neighborhood, Grant was by his side. When Jackson alighted from the plane at O’Hare International Airport in August 2021 after receiving the commander of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, in a Paris ceremony, Grant was nearby.

Now Grant, a longtime Rainbow/PUSH Coalition member, is leading the international human and civil rights organization. On Sept. 5, Grant became acting national executive director of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, where he serves as administrator of day-to-day operations in Chicago and for satellite offices, affiliates and chapters around the country.

“Consistency is one of the truest markers and means by which we measure one another,” said Grant, formerly the national field director for Rainbow/PUSH. “I think what I’m appreciating is the fact that what I’m doing is what I was doing a month ago. What I’m doing now is what I was doing a year ago. I just so happen to be in the driver’s seat. I have the responsibility, obligation and his (Jackson’s) sanction. I feel the weight of that from him, from his family, from the organization.”

Grant crossed paths with Jackson while a junior at Rezin Orr Academy High School. Jackson’s message of “I Am Somebody” resonated with him at a point in his life when he needed to hear it. According to Grant, Jackson became a role model and an example of possibility. The first and second person he voted for was Jackson, during his U.S. presidential bids in 1984 and 1988. During his time with Jackson and Rainbow/PUSH, Grant has served as a volunteer and a youth organizer, and became a staffer under former Operation PUSH leader Tyrone Crider.

“I am a byproduct of Rev. Jackson’s PUSH Excel bullet,” Grant said. “I have always lived with the impact and impression he made on me. I’ve traveled with him, been a speechwriter, been the janitor, the bus driver, fried some chicken every now and then — I’ve done everything in the organization but this and now I’ve got a chance to do it.”

We spoke with Grant, the grandson of Texarkana, Arkansas, sharecroppers, a week after his appointment to talk about his goals, hurdles and upcoming Rainbow/PUSH Coalition activations before Election Day. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q: Having been with the organization as long as you have, what are your top three goals in this new role?

A: The first thing I want to do is be a part of the transformation of the organization into this era of Black culture and Black Renaissance, if you will. We have a Black mayor, Lori Lightfoot; Toni Preckwinkle (County Board president); Chris Welch (the Illinois House speaker) — we have Black political power now that at the height of Harold Washington was unimaginable. And there’s a gap in civil rights right now — an age gap, a technology gap, a philosophical gap. So when you say Black Lives Matter and you say Rainbow/PUSH, NAACP and the Urban League, it’s as if you’re talking about two different eras. I think Rev. Jackson’s niche and gift was creating PUSH, a byproduct of SCLC (the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Dr. King’s brilliant idea to start Operation Breadbasket, an economic social justice arm of the Black church. Jesse Jackson took that and made it PUSH and it was young, innovative. He took youth, progressive politics, and the Black church and shook them up and made it work. We have a climate now that may not come again, where possibilities are now in our midst organizationally. Under my leadership, I’m keenly aware and uniquely qualified in my background to make that pivot rather than trying to re-create the organization. Rev. Jackson was a thermostat. He could take the temperature of the culture. What are millennials talking about now? Wealth building, generational wealth. How do you get a generation without connecting the past with the future? I think that’s what this opportunity does.

Secondly, we have to be responsible and intentional in providing an incubator for new talent, new leadership — not just political leadership, but economic leadership. We’re moving money today like never before. We’re understanding and appreciating finance but how do we socially develop people? In the transition of (Jackson) from candidate, humanitarian, civil rights leader, there was not the necessary imperative for leadership development that would afford us from a branding standpoint to offer people something more than an organization that would provide political analytics and the aggregate of being involved with social justice issues.

Third, reclaiming our space in the area of economic justice. We now have a wave that is sweeping through our community’s economic lives, with services and resources that have been devastated in such a way that Rev. Jackson started Buy Black campaigns. He gave profile to Black professionals and Black entrepreneurs and Black upstarts — that’s been PUSH’s modus operandi. Those three going into 2023, I think is significant to doing several things: having some real relevance and viability, some sustainability … It’s a tremendous opportunity to do some building and be creative, (and) the board has given me a great deal of autonomy. It’s almost like getting the keys in the car and they’re saying “make sure you bring it back with a full tank of gas.”

Q: What do you see as the biggest hurdle to your goals?

A: The perception that civil rights doesn’t matter. Every day, I meet somebody who says: “I didn’t know all of this about Rainbow/PUSH?” “Can you help me keep my job?” Or, “My child is being put out of school, what should I do?” “I can’t afford a lawyer. But can you come to court?” You need to support PUSH before you need PUSH because when you need PUSH, we may not be there because you didn’t support us.

Large gatherings of people marching down the street to bring about change, that’s one facet of it. Winning a multimillion-dollar settlement is civil litigation, not civil rights. Civil rights has been about public policy and is about restoring the essence and the legitimacy of constitutional rights. It is about having access and equity and marginalizing the disparities that are often perpetuated from one generation to the next. The sense of work and value is a tremendous hurdle in terms of people recognizing that the winds of change are not blowing behind us. They are headwinds and they’re ever increasing. And there are any number of efforts to diminish, demoralize and marginalize our growth in ways we never thought, we’ve never even conceived of. The need and imperative of strong civil rights organization is upon us. I think we’re gonna see it in the midterms. We’re certainly going to see it going into the next presidential cycle.

Q: Rainbow/PUSH is sending water to Jackson, Mississippi, for their recent water woes; what’s it going to take to stop having third-world situations in our nation?

A: The federal government is going to have to innovate — the EPA, FEMA, small business associations are going to have to superimpose their will on the state government for the good of the citizens … appealing to the president, the White House, leveraging their resources along with Congressman Bennie Thompson. This didn’t just happen. If you add COVID to the equation, this is an ever-evolving catastrophe. We still have a disproportionate number of African Americans who are unvaccinated. Now when you put in water with bacteria in it, you have a third-world situation on your hands. We’re talking about seniors, children with disabilities, people who are already living below the national poverty line. This is a really big deal.

Q: What is Rainbow/PUSH doing in terms of Election Day?

A: A voter registration bus campaign, a motorcade across 17 cities. The tour runs Oct. 8-22 and starts in Minneapolis. We have to add to the rolls and we got to turn out what’s on the rolls. The other side is organized. They have a systematic approach to this and they’re hoping COVID flares up, the weather’s bad in the region, and they have a perfect storm. When you look across Minneapolis to Jacksonville, Florida, there’s a path to victory. In times past, we’ve waited until the eleventh hour to try to do something. This tour will be something that we have not seen in the midterms. Usually we pass on the midterms and take a break. Now it’s you play through or you get played. This tour is more than just inspirational, we’re going to produce what will be a nonpartisan voter guide on issues. I think part of our challenge in mobilizing our base is having our base educated on the real issues, which is not “Do you trust the vaccine?” or “Is Dr. Fauci working for Russia?”

drockett@chicagotribune.com