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Global I Am Episode 3: I Am Somebody: Jesse Jackson, Jamaica Kincaid, and the Architecture of Identity
Description
Welcome back to the full season of The Global I AM Podcast at the Nexus of THE Culture and Our Capital. After our first 2 beta-episodes as well as episodes from our vaults earlier this year, Global I Am will resume every Friday to share information from around the worlds of culture and finance.
For our first episode back, we lean into the wisdom of the Pacific Ocean at Point Loma University, a Christian liberal arts university in San Diego, California, founded in 1902 and rooted in the Wesleyan tradition - Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) is named after its location on the Point Loma peninsula in San Diego, California, where it moved in 1973
In a rare and layered gathering of minds — Dr. Dean Nelson of Point Loma University, our Max Rodriguez of the Harlem Book Fair, Kenyan leader Wavinya Makai of Cambridge University, global financier Bill Huston and visionary Patrick A. Howell - explore the intersection of literature, leadership, and lived identity.
At the center stands Jesse Jackson as a living force through the people whom he inspired. When he declared, “I Am Somebody,” in 1984 and 1989 as a presidential aspirant, he did more than inspire - he changed the nation, he changed the world.
Dean and Max talk about Jamaica Kincaid - a literary force whose voice, rooted in Antigua and expanded across the world, has shaped how we understand place, power and self-definition, from St. John’s to Harvard, from the Caribbean to the global stage.
Dean E. Nelson, Ph.D., is a beloved award-winning journalist, author, and 21st Century thought leader who founded and directs the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU). He is also the founder and host of the distinguished annual Writer's Symposium by the Sea.
This episode moves across continents and disciplines:
- From the civil rights movement to the global diaspora
- From economic systems to cultural production
- From personal testimony to institutional consequence
It positions Jesse Jackson as what he truly is:
The bridge - between Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama, between protest and policy, between voice and power.