HOUSTON – As tributes pour in for civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson, one Houston journalist-turned educator is reflecting on a moment that helped define her life’s work.
KPRC 2 anchor Andy Cerota sat down with her to talk about what she calls a brief but powerful encounter more than four decades ago when she met Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Texas Southern University journalism professor and Assistant Dean Serbino Sandifer-Walker still remembers the day in 1984 when Jackson came to Galveston during his presidential campaign. At the time, she was the first African American news director at KILE Radio.
“I remember like it was yesterday. It was 42 years ago. To me, that’s unbelievable,” she said. “What it did, it humbled me, but it also helped me to understand that representation is very important.”
Sandifer-Walker interviewed Jackson as he visited Galveston to connect with voters. After the interview, she says Jackson gave her a small but unforgettable gesture of encouragement.
“Reverend Jackson gave me a little pat on the shoulder, and it affirmed to me that I was supposed to be there. I was exactly where I needed to be,” she said. “It also affirmed to me accountability, that I had to ask him the tough questions.”
That simple pat, she recalls, felt like something more.
“He made you feel like you were his relative,” she said. “That pat on the shoulder made me feel like my father patted me on the shoulder saying, ‘Good job, girl. Good job. You got this. You can do this.’”
A CALLING TO TELL STORIES FOR THE “UNSEEN”
Sandifer-Walker said that encounter helped crystalize her responsibility as a journalist especially to communities that often feel left out.
“It signaled to me that I had a responsibility to go into the community and to tell those stories that were very important — and most important to people who felt invisible, unseen, disenfranchised,” she said.
She sees Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign in the same light.
“In actuality, I think that Reverend Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign was about that challenging America to live up to its promise, its promise of liberty, equality, dignity, respect and justice for all,” she said.
Today, even as a professor and assistant dean, she says she still considers herself a journalist.
“I still write every day working on books, working on multimedia projects,” she said. “Being a journalist is so important. It really makes a difference in our community, and I have to hold everyone accountable, including holding myself accountable.”
JACKSON’S FOOTPRINT IN HOUSTON AND AT TSU
Sandifer-Walker says Jackson’s work alongside local civil rights leaders helped shape Texas Southern University and the broader Houston community, particularly in historically underserved neighborhoods.
“His work had a tremendous impact at Texas Southern University and our entire community,” she said. “Jesse Jackson was definitely an advocate for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, white Americans all Americans with his Rainbow Coalition.”
Education, she says, was central to his message.
“Education, to him, was liberation,” she said. “He was a strong advocate of education… and for students in those underserved communities getting an education.”
She connected Jackson’s advocacy to TSU’s own civil rights legacy. TSU students led Houston’s first sit-in on March 4, 1960 a protest she now brings to life for her classes by retracing those steps.
“What I typically do with my class is I relive that history by marching to that location where that sit-in was held,” she said, noting it was at a Weingarten’s store on Almeda. “I worked for two years to get a historical marker to be left there.”
Jackson, she said, engaged deeply with students and leaders who were pushing for equality and economic opportunity.
“He worked so hard with our students, with Dr. King, with even Reverend Lawson,” she said. “Reverend Jackson was that quintessential advocate for the little guy, for the person who felt disenfranchised, for the person who just simply wanted to be but they were being held back by policy and by people who didn’t realize we had so much more in common than you can ever imagine.”
His message, she says, was simple but urgent: work together, across lines of race and background, to move communities forward.
“He wanted us to understand that we needed to work together in order to move our communities forward,” she said. “That’s simply his legacy that we could all work together, no matter your race, your gender.”
PROCESSING HIS PASSING
When news broke of Jackson’s passing, Sandifer-Walker said she had to stop and take a breath.
“I had to take a moment, because I knew that he was ill, but you’re just never prepared for that moment when you know this iconic person is no longer here,” she said. “It really impacted me, because I felt like he was my relative.”
Her mind went back to that moment in Galveston, and to the words Jackson often shared with crowds.
“I still go back to that little pat on my shoulder. It affirmed me. It helped me to believe that I could be somebody,” she said. “He would always say… ‘I am somebody. You matter.’ And I thought about all of that as a young person that I really mattered. I really mattered, and I made a difference, and will continue to make a difference.”
She says she now works to pass that same message on to her students and the communities she serves.
“My promise to them is to tell their stories with a level of authenticity and honesty that really matters,” she said.
CARRYING THE LEGACY FORWARD
Sandifer-Walker describes Jackson as “a simple man from South Carolina” whose life showed what was possible with hard work, conviction and compassion.
“No one said he was perfect, because none of us are perfect, right? But he left a huge legacy that will never be forgotten by me and many others,” she said. “That legacy is that you can come from anywhere, and you can be anything. You put your mind to it, you work hard, then you work with others, and you respect others, and you treat others with dignity and respect.”
For her, that 1984 interview is now part of a much larger story: a through line connecting Galveston’s emancipation history, TSU’s civil rights roots and Jackson’s national influence.
“It’s such an iconic place, and to think that Jesse Jackson actually came to Galveston in 1984, that was so impactful, so powerful,” she said. “I’m grateful that I’d had that opportunity back in 1984 to interview the Reverend Jesse Jackson.”
Today, she says, Houston is full of people quietly continuing that work.