Robert Jackson, New York State Senator

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Series: Underground Groundbreakers of Today

When I arrived at the office of New York State Senator Robert Jackson in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as busy as it was on a Friday afternoon in August. But I had arrived during quite an important moment for anyone who lives in the New York metropolitan area and deals with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, more commonly known as the MTA–Senator Jackson and his colleagues had just had a call with the chairman of the MTA, who agreed to make shuttle buses available for people who live near the 181st Street A train station while some of the elevators were being replaced. This was a huge accomplishment, as anyone who deals with the MTA knows. Jackson and his team were working on getting a press release out and then planning to be at the 181st Street station around 5:30 pm, once people started to arrive uptown during the after-work rush.

Even in the midst of all this, however, as I sat waiting outside of his office, as soon as Jackson saw me he stopped in his tracks and immediately introduced himself. When he realized that his scheduled interview had arrived (who was a constituent of his who voted for him, no less), he started to try to find a stopping point in order to keep to the schedule. Of course, knowing that he was in the middle of something urgent, especially something to immediately help the community, I hardly wanted him to rush! But eventually he found a place where he could take a break so he could speak with me, which I greatly appreciated.

This successful campaign was not the first of its kind for Jackson. Though he was elected to the New York State Senate in 2018, he has been politically involved in one way or another, elected or not, for decades. Born in 1950, Jackson grew up in New York City, moving around a lot around parts of Harlem and the Bronx as one of nine children. When he was in high school, his track coach, Irwin Goldberg, saw his potential as a student, if not as a runner, and encouraged him to apply for Upward Bound, a federally funded education program that helps underserved students prepare for college. It was this move, Jackson says, that changed his entire life. He told me, without hesitation, that if it weren’t for the push he got from Goldberg, he would not be sitting across from me at the table in his office speaking with me that day. This was a powerful statement to hear and gave me a sense of what Jackson has fought for and continues to fight for every day.

Participating in the Upward Bound program gave Jackson the opportunity to attend SUNY New Paltz as part of the educational opportunity program. It was there that he met his wife, whom he married in 1975 and with whom he raised three daughters in Washington Heights. When his daughters were in school, Jackson got involved with the parents’ association at their school, P.S./I.S. 187, where he would get his first big experience in leadership. 

In the early 1990s, many parents and others involved in education grew concerned that New York State was not providing adequate funding to New York City schools. Jackson founded a group called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) in 1993, which filed a lawsuit against the state despite the long odds against them. In order to avoid settling, the group filed the lawsuit on their own instead of aligning themselves with the city to do it, but the city ended up filling a lawsuit anyway and the two lawsuits were combined. The judge ruled that both the city and the group didn’t have standing to file suits since they were creations of the state, but individuals did–so that’s exactly what Jackson and his fellow group members did. Though it took years to finally be resolved, as these cases often do, in 2006 (after 13 years!) the state was ordered to give $2.1 billion more in funding to city schools.

The CFE success was a major accomplishment for Jackson and his group, and would help in his run for the New York City Council in 2001. He served on the City Council for twelve years, representing parts of Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood. His responsibilities included chairing the Contracts Committee, then the Education Committee, and co-chairing the Black, Latino and Asian caucus. In 2013, he decided to run for Manhattan borough president, but lost that race. In 2014, he ran for State Senate but lost to current Washington Heights/Harlem Congressman Adriano Espaillat. But if his fight with the Campaign for Fiscal Equity shows, Jackson’s tenacity is endless: he ran for State Senate again in 2018 against Marisol Alcántara, who had turned off a lot of voters by joining with the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a group of State Senate Democrats who caucused separately from the rest of the party and allied themselves with Senate Republicans. The IDC was eventually dissolved in 2018, and all eight members were primaried in the 2018 elections; six of them were defeated. Jackson was the first to announce his challenge of the IDC, becoming part of a group that included Alessandra Biaggi, Rachel May, John Liu, Jessica Ramos, and Zellnor Myrie, a group of truly progressive, uncorruptable politicians who would fight for the people who voted them in. Jackson soundly defeated his opponent Alcántara by more than 10,000 votes, a particularly impressive margin in a district where the total number of votes is usually around 20,000. 

Now that Jackson is finally in the Senate, there has been plenty of work to do. The legislative term that just ended in June has been called the most progressive term ever in the State Senate’s history, with important measures passed on tenants’ rights, immigration issues, and reproductive rights, among others. On the agenda for next year are issues such as the legalization of marijuana (it is currently decriminalized up to 3 oz.) and a climate protection act to get rid of all carbon emissions (currently to be reduced by 85% by 2050). The most important issue to Jackson personally is housing, an issue that affects so many New Yorkers, who have some of the highest rents in the country.

What is also particularly unique about Senator Jackson is also what he doesn’t make front and center: he is the first Muslim in the New York State Senate. He was born a Baptist and converted to Islam when marrying his wife. But while one might think he would highlight this aspect of himself to differentiate himself in his campaign, it in fact came up towards the end of our talk and was almost an afterthought, with him stating, “We’re all brothers and sisters.”

By the end of our talk, I had a good sense of what Robert Jackson is all about and what he has set out to do throughout his entire career, whether he was in elected office or not– “doing what’s best for the people.” This seems simple enough, since it is theoretically what all elected representatives should be doing! But as we know, that is very much not the case at all levels of office. Jackson is the best representative of what the people are really voting for–someone who actually listens to their concerns and is not beholden to donor or corporate interests when it comes time to vote on legislation. To him and those like him, as he says, “It’s not about the money”–even when that often means a pay cut when deciding to run for elected office. This became even more clear to me as he had to quickly wrap up our time to rush over to 181st Street to announce the plans for the shuttle bus that he had been working on when I arrived. 

It was at that moment our conversation came full circle: even though he was clearly very busy that day, he still took the time to tell me about why he does what he does. From taking it to Albany to taking it the MTA, he has spent his career fighting for everyday people, while also not forgetting to take the time to listen to them–the epitome of what any elected representative should be.

To learn more about Senator Jackson, please check out his social media pages:

Twitter: @SenatorRJackson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SenatorRJackson/