Rainbow Challenge

Firstpublished in 1986, Sheila Collins’s eyewitness account of Jesse Jackson’sRainbow Coalition remains a crucial document on the future of multiracialpolitics and ultimately of democracy in the United States. Collins, a fieldorganizer and national officer during the Jackson campaign, examined themovement in detail, drawing on her own experiences and observations, as wellas interviews with people around the country who have worked in the RainbowCoalition. She pays particular attention to the class and ideologicalstruggles within it—struggles not only between party Democrats and grassrootsactivists, but between alternative visions of black nationalism andmultiracial politics. In a new preface, Collins reflects on the lessons andinspiration of her experience forty years later and on the continuedchallenge to keep Jackson’s vision alive. “A comprehensive study of JesseJackson’s presidential campaign. This concise and well-written work is a fineexample of politically engaged scholarship. A blueprint for future democraticstruggles.”—Manning Marable (1950–2011), author, Malcolm X: A Life ofReinvention “Offers important insights into the need for effective coalition buildingto transform the substance of American politics—politics that will deal withthe issues rather than personalities; politics that will broaden theparticipatory process rather than restrict it.” —Congressman Ronald Dellums(1935–2018) “An insider’s view of the project, practice, and problems of the RainbowCoalition, in sharp contrast to the fashionable ivory-tower treatments of theJackson campaign far removed from the heat of battle.”—Cornel West