Life Magazine | November 29th, 1969

... Sometimes he preaches on the legacy of slavery, and one senses that as he stands up there, his eyes ablaze, arms flailing, neck veins rigid, he is feeling every lash of every old whip. During these sermons Jackson sweats profusely, the only visible symptom of sickle-cell trait, a chronic blood disease that saps his stamina but which he ignores in the drama of the moment. Jackson talks about himself at these meetings. Once he told of his days as a waiter at the Jack Tar Hotel in his home town of Greenville, S.C. Just before leaving the kitchen he would spit into the food of white patrons he hated and then smilingly serve it to them. He did this, he said, "because it gave me psychological gratification." It was something everybody in the audience understood.

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