Four Eyes On The Prize (Newsweek Magazine)

By Howard Fineman
Newsweek Magazine
September 8, 1997

Jesse Jackson Jr and J.C. Watts are both smart, black, ambitious- and politically on a collision course.

Birmingham has a certain history. Dr. King wrote letters from the jail there. Black churches were bombed there. Sheriff Bull Connor unleashed his dogs there. So the recent scene in the city's Health South ballroom was remarkable. Most of the Alabama elite -- 1,500 donors and guest -- packed the place to hear a charismatic young congressman from the Bible belt. He made no mention of Birmingham's grievous past. Instead, in sunny tones, the Oklahoma Republican spoke the local language: honor thy family, praise the Lord -- and pass more tax cuts. When he finished, the guests at the state GOP dinner gave him a standing ovation, full of rebel yells. The fact that Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. is black hardly seemed to matter -- which is why, of course, it did.

To Watts, history is beside the point. To Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Democrat of Chicago, it's the whole deal. Too often, says the son of the civil-rights leader, Ivy-educated black interns in Congress think their own smooth rise proves there's no longer a need for federal programs to deal with "this nation's 378-year-old race problem." So he leads them on consciousness-raising tours of the Capitol. The old Supreme Court chamber, where Dred Scott was decided. Statuary Hall, where Confederate leaders are numerous and there's only one person of color. The Rotunda, where a bust of King annoyingly depicts him as downcast, defeated, Jackson always stops at a portrait of Sen. John C. Calhoun, the stormy-browed champion of states' rights in defense of slavery. "Believe me," Jackson says with a chuckle, "they're still making 'Calhoun moves' here."

If, Flannery O'Connor once wrote, everything that rises must converge, then J.C. Watts and Jesse Jackson Jr. are on a collision course: thirtysometing rivals for the soul of black folk and the moral attention of the nation. President Clinton can appoint a "commission on race"; California can ignite a new fight over affirmative action.. But in Washington the search for a racial solution -- and resolution -- will also be framed by debates between these men.

Each is in only his second term, yet each is already a national presence. Now, or later, Watts could run for statewide office. He drew raves at an early GOP presidential "beauty contest" in Indianapolis recently, and some Republicans would like to see him as the vice presidential candidate on the GOP ticket in 2000. Jackson's father, who led an affirmative-action protest march in California last week, is considering another run for the Democratic nomination. The father-son team would run the campaign. In the meantime, Jesse Junior is intent on accumulating seniority in Congress. "It's going to be J.C. versus 'The Kid' for the next decade," said polltaker Frank Luntz, who has done surveys on both. "They've got the strong beliefs, stage presence and rhetorical skill."

More alike than they know, yet vastly different in outlook and philosophy, Watts, 39, and Jackson, 32, are a double helix of competing answers coiled around an old question: how can African-Americans find peace, and equality, where they once were slaves? Jackson's vision is full gospel government. He wants to use Washington inside clout to increase federal spending on education, public works and welfare. Watts, by contrast, insists there are no answers in Washington-only in God, family and race-blind, unfettered capitalism.

Their clashing philosophies are grounded in geography, in districts that are predominantly middle class with pockets of deep poverty -- but otherwise utterly opposite. Jackson's South Side Chicago is two-thirds black. It's the detritus of rust-belt America, including an abandoned shopping center where the final scenes of "The Blues Brothers" were filmed. Watt's overwhelmingly white district, encompassing Oklahoma City, Norman and stretches of range land, boasts some of the nation's fastest-growing counties, with malls springing up beside oil derricks.

Things have gotten a bit personal between the two. In a newspaper interview last winter, Watts was made to sound as though he'd called Jesse Jackson Sr. a "race-hustling poverty pimp." Watts was speaking of liberal black leaders generically, but Jackson Jr demanded an apology. After a debate among his advisors, Watts called Father and son to say he was sorry -- not for the sentiments expressed but for the language used. "Some of their allies have used harsh words about me like 'sellout'," said Watts. "But the words I sued were too colorful," Jesse Junior chooses his words with great care. "I like J.C. personally," he says. "I'm just not sure he wants to validate the history of minorities in this country."

Jackson and Watts seem destined to write more of that history themselves, and it's worth knowing the life story of each to see how one sheds light on the other. They share a heritage of fame, faith and family. Both were bred to the spotlight. Oldest son and namesake, Jackson campaigned for his dad in 1984 and introduced him on TV at the 1988 Democratic convention. Accompanying his father, he's met world leaders and every president since Jimmy Carter. Reared on Chicago's South Side, he was sent to board at St. Albans in Washington, D.C., a scion among many scions of fame.

Watts used to attention, too. A spectacular athlete in his rural hometown of Ufalla, Okla., he quarterbacked the University of Oklahoma Sooners to consecutive Big Eight titles and Orange Bowl victories. Gifted with an easy, confident speaking style and a memory for quick Reaganesque anecdotes, Watts became an accomplished showman in college. In a state where football is religion, he was an icon long before he entered politics.

Jackson and Watts share a grounding in Baptist preaching and Civil-rights activism. Indeed, in their fathers' generation the church and "the Movement" were one and the same. Jesse Junior calls his dad "Reverend," and with justification. Dad's pastored a church at least part time since he was ordained in 1963. His son isn't a preacher, though he did attend the same seminary, Chicago Theological and holds an academic divinity degree. J.C. is also the namesake son of a preacher. Julius Caesar (Buddy) Watts Sr. was a farmer and policeman weekdays, a country pastor on Sundays. He's retired from the force but still preaches. Uncle Wade Watts is also a Baptist minister and for years led the Oklahoma chapter of the NAACP, Buddy and Wade worked to desegregate public facilities and made sure J.C. was among the first blacks to attend integrated elementary school in Ufalla. J.C. was ordained a Southern Baptist preacher in 1987. Jackson and Watts were shaped by the Bible--and patriarchal, Old Testament fathers. Though "Reverend" was on the road much of his youth, Jesse Junior followed his father's direction faithfully. After St. Albans he attended North Carolina A&T, as his father commanded. "He needed to see black kids who were smarter than he was even though they didn't have the advantages he did," Reverend explains. Junior then got degrees from his father's other institutions, Chicago Theological and the University of Illinois (for law). His wife, journalist Sandi Stephens, was a top aide to one of Reverend's best friends, the late congressman Mickey Leland.

Jesse Junior is his father's son in another way. He's tried to learn from his mistakes. He's systematic where his dad is improvisational -- a science buff who patiently assembles model trains in his basement. His father is famous for being late; his son has never missed vote. Junior is careful to avoid turning every issue into a matter of race. His father, he says, sometimes errs rhetorically by emphasizing race to the exclusion of economics. His dad, he says, also mistakes motion for progress. "You don't have to be there for everyone in every place on every issue," the son says.

Family is everything to Watts as well, but he learned that lesson in a far different way. The crucial event, Newsweek has learned, occurred when J.C. was a high school senior in 1976. He was king of the campus--until he got a white girl pregnant. The town was scandalized, according to Buddy Watts. Some wanted to bar J.C. from taking part in a flag-raising ceremony until his father showed up in his policeman's uniform to ensure that his son could participate. According to Buddy Watts, the white woman's family couldn't accept a "black baby" into their home. NO one, including J.C. thought it was practical for them to be married, given racial attitudes then. So the Watts clan decided that the woman should bear the child; they would care for the baby girl until J.C.'s uncle Wade could formally adopt her.

Which is what happened, according to the Watts family. J.C. and the rest of the clan have helped support the child, who lived with Reverend Watts in nearby McAlester. She's now a college senior, a "straight-A student," J.C. says proudly. In 1977 he married Frankie Jones, a black woman with whom he has five children. They celebrated their 20th anniversary last month.

Watts spins the tale into a conservative fable, pointing out that family bonds mattered and that the child never received welfare. "You think you were cute, but it was just flat-out dumb," he says. "But those are the times when your faith carries you and you learn from your mistakes. I hope people would give me some credit for taking a bad choice and making the best of it. The child wasn't aborted The child never received one dime of government assistance. I've been part of her life from day one."

If they share a heritage of fame, faith and family, why are Jackson and Watts philosophical opposites? Oddly, football was pivotal. Jesse Junior played some ball at St. Albans and A&T, but it wasn't a major force in his life -- nothing that could override race as a reference point. But football baptized Watts in the mainstream. In Ufalla, face and the past had been everything; the white girl's family, after all, had wanted nothing to do with their child. But football was colorblind and only about the next play. All that mattered was that you could run, and throw and think.

To be a quarterback in the football belt is a special thing, and J.C. was among the first African-Americans to star at that position in that place. At OU he was the classic -- some say the all-time best "wishbone" quarterback, running an intricate offense that required enduring optimism and a willingness to absorb ungodly punishment. Off the field, he was a star speaker for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Thanks to OU and FCA ties, he entered the oil business, which later led to an elected position on the state corporation commission. So he had completed the Oklahoma trinity: football, Jesus and hydrocarbons. Who could doubt that hard work meant full equality?

Football left them with different attitudes and so, too, did the stories their fathers told about their own youth. AS a boy, Jesse Senior lived in public housing in Greenville, S.C., and was thankful for it. He was a civil rights worker in the South when only the power of Washington stood between blacks seeking freedom and the crushing force of local cops. There was every reason -- every need - to identify with the group and to look to the government for help.

The Watts family history was less about the South than about leaving it. J.C.'s grandfather had left early in the century and become a rancher, running cattle in Alberta, where there were few blacks for hundreds of miles. Buddy inherited a cowboy's independence and a Western distrust of categories. Like his father and grandfather before him, J.C. hates to be labeled -- "put in a box," he says. When the New York Jets drafted him to be running back, he bridled. Like his grandfather, he went to Canada--and became a start quarterback again.

The sum of these differences shows up in matters grand and small. They disagree for example, on the role of faith in public life. Jesse worships at the altar of public works, his holy grail a major new airport in his Chicago district. J.C. Watt's faith isn't in public works but in good works in faith. He is a lead sponsor of the Community Renewal Act. The controversial measure would allow faith-based institutions-- such as the Oklahoma City church Watts helps pastor -- to receive government grants to run social programs.

Then there's the matter of lapel pins, red-enamel-and-gold discs that signify membership in Congress. Jackson never wears his - and takes a bitter satisfaction in being unable to hail a cab late at night on the Hill. "What we're dealing with is a societal assumption about black males." He says. Watts, by contrast, always wears his pin, he seems proud of it. The gold eagle looks sharp. It does help the occasional confused Capitol Hill cop. And, ever the scrambling quarterback. Watts has found a free-market solution to the cab crisis. He's rented an apartment within walking distance of his office.

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