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THE EXPRESS KEEPS ROLLING There matters stood when the Rainbow Express rolled out of Chicago on its way to Atlanta. Jackson, leader of the Democratic Party’s left wing, obviously felt shunned, not only by Dukakis’s apparent discourtesy but by the selection of Bentsen, a conservative Texan. “Mr. Bentsen represents one wing of the party, I represent the other wing,” Jackson proclaimed. “It takes two wings to fly, and so far, our wing is not connected.” The Democratic convention appeared headed for a crash landing. Party leaders desperately wanted a harmonious, united show in Atlanta, and Jackson was promising to give them anything but. In the Jackson camp, there was talk of demonstrations in the streets of Atlanta, of divisive fights over the party platform, even of Jackson himself challenging Bentsen for the vice-presidential nomination from the floor of the convention. “This party was hanging by a thread in Atlanta,” Jackson’s aide Ron Brown recalled. As the Rainbow Express roared southward along Interstate 65, the mood in the candidate’s motor coach was surprisingly upbeat. Jackson’s five children lifted everyone’s spirits. “It’s fun. It’s family time. We laugh a lot,” said one daughter. More than 125 reporters, photographers, and television crewmembers squeezed onto the buses, and their presence guaranteed Jackson a prominent place on the evening news and in the next morning’s newspapers. The bus caravan was meant as a plain reminder of the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s, the time when young blacks, traveling on interstate buses into the Deep South, challenged the racial segregation found in the facilities of public transportation. Late on Thursday afternoon, July 14, the Rainbow Express rumbled into Indianapolis. Only a few curious pedestrians turned to watch the buses pass by, but that evening at a rally in the Christ Missionary Baptist Church, Jackson found the sort of enthusiasm and acclaim that had long sustained his campaigns. He was,

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C I V I L R I G H T S L E A D E R S : J E S S E J AC K S O N