Jesse Jackson has turned 65 and his birthday coincides with his four decades of service to the Civil Rights Movement. There is a big bash planned in his honor this Saturday in Chicago and I regret that I will be unable to attend. After covering him for most of my 36 years in journalism, including his 1984 presidential campaign for the Chicago Tribune, it would be a delight to attend activities that are certain to be part testimonial, part family reunion.

Instead of being in Chicago, I’ll be in Tennessee, attending my Knoxville College Board of Trustees meeting on Homecoming weekend and chairing a search committee that is in the final stages of selecting a new president for my alma mater. As a product of North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university in Greensboro, I am sure Rev. Jackson understands the necessity of my not being in Chicago this weekend. We must prepare the next wave of civil rights leaders, many of whom will continue to come from historically Black college and universities.

Wherever we are this weekend, it will be a good time to step back and reflect on Jackson’s lifelong dedication. As a community, we’re pretty brutal in our critique of men and women in public life. We laugh at their foibles, note their voracious craving for publicity and are especially critical when they hop from issue to issue or press conference to press conference, with no follow-up in sight. When you’re a public figure, that’s all considered fair game.

But we shouldn’t stop there.

At some point, we should also express our admiration and gratitude to those who spurn lucrative careers in the private sector to keep the spotlight shinning on the seemingly intractable issues of racism, unequal education, inadequate housing, unemployment, and criminal injustice. They are the ones, in Jackson’s words, who keep hope alive.

Love him or loathe him, – or dangling somewhere in between – it is undeniable that Jesse Louis Jackson has spent his entire adult life at the forefront of the battles over civil rights. After leaving the seminary to participate in the Selma-to-Montgomery March that paved the way for passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Jesse Jackson has been on the case. In some respects, he has been ahead of his time.

During his 1984 campaign, he often talked about how asinine it was for the United States to have a “no talk” policy toward its most ardent enemies. Talking to one another provided no guarantee that differences would be settled, Jackson argued. But not talking forestalls any likelihood that parties can set aside their differences, I remember him saying at the time. Today, more than two decades later, we’re in an imbroglio with North Korea and, like some spoiled kid, we refuse to talk to their leaders. George W. Bush still misunderstands what Jackson understood in 1984.

Journalists covering Jackson’s maiden campaign were provided an experience that would also prove to be valuable years later. When Jackson took his low-budget national campaign to New Orleans, we did not head for Bourbon Street. Instead, he took us to the Desire housing project. As a person who grew up in public housing in Tuscaloosa, Ala., I had not seen the likes of poverty and suffering in Desire or the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Even the infamous Pruitt-Igoe, a public housing complex in St. Louis that was deemed such a failure that dynamite was used to level it, could not match the suffering we witnessed in New Orleans. So when Americans were shocked to learn last year that poverty was so widespread in New Orleans, Jesse Jackson had already made that point clear to us during his campaign.

Right-wing critics often accuse Jackson of expecting too much from the federal government. His is a generation that understood that the federal government, especially for those living in the segregated South, was the government of last resort. But they miss a larger and perhaps more important point: Jesse Jackson is extremely traditional and over the years, he has exhorted students to turn off the TV and get turned on to studying. Rather than bemoaning race-based White voting patterns, he has challenged African-Americans to increase their voter registration and participation. More than Black conservatives, he has practiced self-help. SCLC, Rainbow/PUSH, the National Urban League and the NAACP are all self-help organizations. Conservatives don’t have a monopoly on self-help.

Finally, my friends, as you lift a toast to Jesse Jackson this weekend, lift one for his courage. I have heard death deaths relayed over police radios. I know about the hate mail he receives and I know the sacrifices the Jackson family has made to allow Jesse to be Jesse. And while he and I have disagreed on some issues in the past and will probably do so again in the future, I’ve never questioned his commitment. It’s time to step back and say to Jesse Jackson: Thanks for your unselfish service. We’re all the better for it.