Frontline the Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson

 ((Tues. (30), 9-10:30 p.m., PBS))

By TODD EVERETT

Produced by Frontline with the Lennon Production Group. Executive producer, David Fanning; senior producers, Thomas Lennon, Michael Sullivan; producer, Mark Zwonitzer; writers, Marshall Frady, Zwonitzer.
 
Host: Marshall Frady.
 

This "Frontline" docu promises to investigate three questions about civil rights point man Jesse Jackson: Why does Jesse run; what does Jesse want; and why can't Jesse stop? While Jackson's career is covered evenly and commendably by producer Mark Zwonitzer (who co-wrote the piece with Marshall Frady) and his team, the answers remain tantalizingly obscure.

One of the show's problems is that it evidently has been in the can too long. Neither Jackson's contretemps with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences , nor the Million Man March is mentioned. Latter is particularly significant, as one of docu's theses is that Jackson's light has been diminished by the diverse likes of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Gen. Colin Powell.

After the introductory paragraphs, Farrakhan's name comes up once and Powell's not at all.

As far as it goes, the bio is excellent, beginning at Jackson's birthplace, Greenville, S.C., where his mother and family friends provide insights.

The offspring of unmarried 16-year-old Helen Burns and a much older, married neighbor, Jackson is seen on a constant quest for legitimacy and acceptance.

Jackson gained fame quickly, as a high school athlete attending the U. of Illinois on an athletic scholarship. He then rose quickly through the civil rights movement, hooking up with Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and -- after King's death -- founding his own ministry (at age 26) and Operation PUSH in Chicago. Jackson's campaign for the presidency is covered, as is his subsequent support of a Palestinian homeland.

That was one of Jackson's most visible, controversial moves, losing him much support from the white liberal community.

However, as figures interviewed here (including former SCLC exec director Andrew Young) make clear, Jackson was irritating his fellow civil rights crusaders almost from the beginning: fudging details of his biography (why did he leave college? where, precisely, was he when King died?) and so ambitious that he antagonized such higher-ranking SCLC officers as Ralph Abernathy and King, himself.

Jackson was not interviewed for this piece, but his wife, Jacqueline, is extremely eloquent, and producers have found numerous other figures from his past -- black businessmen, his high school football coach, various participants in Operations PUSH and Breadbasket, and so on.

Two things are made clear: a natural and highly effective spokesman and hugely charismatic figure, Jackson probably would have been a star in whatever profession he chose. And he won't back down now, because he has nowhere else to go.

Camera, Greg Burnette, Richard Chisolm, Rob Rainey, Robert Shepard; editor, Ken Bluto; sound, Jim Gilchrist, Don Hooper, Paul Lenzi, Tom Skarda, Dennis Towns.