"On January 15, 1975, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was leading a demonstration around the White House to protest the lack of jobs for black youths. As the demonstrators marched, Jackson was shocked to discover that many of the black youths marching with him were drunk or on drugs, many of them ""out of control."" Abruptly, he called a halt to the demonstration and sent the marchers home. Within a few months, Jackson launched a national campaign in the urban high schools of the nation to save the black youths of his country, to get them off drugs and motivate them to work hard, study in school, develop self-discipline, and become successful in American society. A program called PUSH for Excellence, or PUSH/Excel, was an outgrowth of his Operation PUSH organization. Society had no solutions for the black teenagers whom Jackson was trying to help, and his efforts were highly praised, at first, by the media and government officials."

Table of Contents:
1.The Most Controversial Man in AmericaJackson's Early Career -- King's Assassination -- The Struggle over Leadership -- Operation PUSH -- The Country Preacher -- 2 A Great IdeaThe Origins of PUSH/Excel -- he Message of the Crusade -- Momentum Builds -- The Problems of Organizing in Operation PUSH -- 3 The Program: Commitment and Self-DisciplineA PUSH/Excel School -- The Decentralized Model -- 4 School PoliticsChicago -- Kansas City -- Los Angeles -- Jackson's Trip to the Middle East -- Notes -- 5 An Inside Look at Two Programs -- Denver -- Chattanooga -- Notes -- 6 The Federal Evaluation Investment Behaviors -- Reactions to the Design -- The Technocratic View -- Notes -- 7 The Federal Verdict: No Program -- The First Evaluation Report -- March 1980 -- The Second Evaluation Report -- September 1980 -- The Third Evaluation Report -- April 1981 -- The Final Report -- March 1982 -- 8 Reactions to the PUSH/Excel Saga -- The National Staff: "It Was a Trap," The Federal Bureaucrats: Marching to theSame Drummer -- The Evaluators: PUSH/Excel Never Existed -- The Local Stakeholders -- The Media: You Never Can Tell -- 9 The Failure of PUSH/Excel, Explanation Number One: Jackson's Personalityand Leadership, Explanation Number Two: The Public Schools, Explanation Number Three: The Federal Bureaucracy, Explanation Number Four: Racism and Racial Politics, Part TwoJesse Jackson and the Power of Charisma -- 10 Jackson's Charismatic Leadership, Sources of Charisma, Contents viiA Moral Order, Crowd Emotion and the Use of Rhetoric, Institutionalization of Crowd Emotion, Deliverance from Oppression, Our Time Has Come, -- 11 The Limits of Charisma, Charisma as Power, PUSH/Excel as Civil Rights Movement, -- 12 The Politics of Race and Social Class, Three Conceptions of Race, The PUSH/Excel View, Social Class, From Caste to Class, The Black Middle Class, PUSH/Excel and Class Structure, -- 13 Jesse Jackson's Character, Accountability and Charismatic Leadership, The Tradition of Black Leadership, Jackson's Personal Characteristics, Jackson's Accountability, -- 14 Postscript: The Presidential Campaigns, Jackson's Image, A Black President, The 1984 Presidential Campaign, The 1984 Convention Speech, The 1988 Presidential Campaign.