equal time Phil Mushnick For Jesse Jackson’s insidious sports hustle, race was always the winning answer By Phil Mushnick Published Feb. 19, 2026, 7:28 p.m. ET Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson (C) looks on as Brandon Green (front right), a catcher and pitcher for the Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team, listens as his mother Venisa speaks at a press conference on February 11, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Getty Images Yet again I find myself stuck at the corner of Easy Populist Pandering and The Truth — at least my version. I could simply ignore the latter — it wouldn’t reduce my pay — but that’s not what I do because I can’t help myself. So here goes:
For years, I’ve been convinced that I played a role in an attempted hustle conducted by the now-late Rev. Jesse Jackson.
In the late 1980s, I began to write a series of columns on how Nike’s marketing plan was to fashion a status symbol to create a feeding frenzy for poor, mostly black children to procure, by any means, obscenely overpriced China slave wage-made Air Jordans. Recall the rush of TV ads, especially those starring Spike Lee as street urchin Mars Blackmon declaring, “It must be the shoes” and “All you homeboys should be bum-rushin’ to get some.”
A national urban epidemic of young-black-on-young-black crime — muggings and murders — erupted in the crazed quest to be seen wearing and even collecting Air Jordans — sneakers, for crying out loud! Such crimes and such frenzies persist.
