Judge Greg Mathis shares little-known story of how Rev. Jesse Jackson mentored him from jail

“He was a father figure…the most influential person, male in my life,” Mathis told theGrio.

Television Judge Greg Mathis is well known to audiences, having arbitrated countless cases on national television for nearly three decades. But what audiences may not know is that the Judge Mathis they know and love today would not be if it were not for civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson.

“There would really be no Judge Mathis 27 years on television without a Rev. Jesse Jackson. That’s for sure,” Mathis told theGrio of his mentor and “father figure” who died on Feb. 17 at 84.

“He was a father figure…the most influential person, male in my life, in that I didn’t have a father,” said Mathis, who met Jackson as a troubled Detroit teen behind bars.

In the late 1970s, Jackson paid a visit to a Detroit county jail where Mathis was serving time after being tried as an adult for gun possession.

“I had been a street youth in Detroit, in and out of juvenile,” said the TV judge. “While there in the county jail awaiting sentencing, [Jackson] came and gave his ‘I am somebody’ roaring speeches.”

At the time, Mathis said he had a “level of Black consciousness,” having brothers who were affiliated with the Black Panthers. However, he knew little about Rev. Jesse Jackson, a protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his movement of civil disobedience.

“We really didn’t embrace Martin Luther King…It was about Huey Newton and Malcolm X, and so when I heard him, I was captivated,” Mathis recalled. “I said, ‘I want to help you fight white people.’ I didn’t know how to ask. I meant I want to help you fight for social justice.”

Rev. Jackson told the young Mathis that he needed to “drop your gun and pick up your books” and that, upon his return from jail, if he went to college, he would hire him. After his release, Mathis attended Eastern Michigan University, where he became a campus activist and developed an interest in politics and public administration. He later volunteered for Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign and was eventually appointed head of the Michigan campaign. Jackson would ultimately help Mathis with his political career and his election to the district judge seat in Wayne County.

Reflecting on Jackson’s legacy, Mathis said it’s not enough to mourn his passing; rather, he encouraged others to follow his leadership. While most people recall Rev. Jesse Jackson’s work in protests and demonstrations, leading Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and, most notably, his historic 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, Judge Mathis highlighted the civil rights leader’s efforts to build Black economic power.

“He assisted over 200 Black franchisors in Burger King and McDonald’s [and] bout 40 or so car dealerships. Black folks getting into ownership, thousands of Black products, suppliers, helping them get their products on the shelves,” he told theGrio. “It’s that economic leverage that we need to return to that Reverend Jackson used so well to get Black contracting, Black hiring, and other economic opportunity.”

Of course, Mathis noted, Jackson “changed the entire political structure [and] power structure” of the Democratic Party, pushing the national party to go from a “winner takes all” approach to how candidates win delegates to one that was more democratized, paving the way for candidates like Barack Obama, America’s first Black president.

Judge Mathis also addressed the controversy in 2008 when Jackson was caught on a hot mic calling out Obama during an interview with Fox News. Knowing the reverend personally, Mathis said he believes the perceived political beef between Jackson and Obama was blown out of proportion.

“Rev. Jackson’s a jokester. I’ve been with him at his side all around. I mean, you couldn’t imagine the stuff he would say that was so funny, sometimes inappropriate,” he said. “He said something intended to be humorous and funny.”

More than anything, said Mathis, Jackson was a constant source of wisdom. He recalled during the COVID-19 pandemic complaining to Jackson about the uptick in crime among Black youth. When he asked Jackson why he thought there was so much crime committed by youth in Black communities at the time, the civil rights icon said sagely, “Lawlessness starts at the top.”

Referring to President Donald Trump’s role in spreading conspiracy theories about his loss in the 2020 presidential election, which resulted in the Jan. 6, 2021 violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, Jackson explained, “How can you tell these impoverished Black street youth not to go in and steal a bag or a watch out of a store when they saw the president order 10,000 people to try and overthrow Congress? Y’all think they’re not looking. Those young folks are looking.”

Mathis added, “That’s the wisdom he gave me. I’ve been trying to figure it out for 6 months. He gave it to me in 60 seconds.”