Back in 2008, Frontline was busy producing the next installment of our election special, The Choice.

It would put a spotlight on the presidential campaigns of Republican John McCain from Arizona.

Fight with me. Fight with me.

Fight for what's right for our country.

And a rising star in the Democratic Party, Illinois's Barack Obama.

What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me.

It's about you.

As the producers conducted interviews, one man they sat down with understood the weight

of that moment better than most, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I can anticipate the tears now because I wish Dr. King could see it.

In 1984 and again in 1988, Jackson had made his own historic bids for the presidency.

Hold your head high. Stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes.

But the morning comes. Don't you surrender.

So when he sat down with producer Jim Gilmore,

he shared that he felt he was witnessing the culmination of a moment.

Barack comes in on the tail end of that running the last leg of a 54-year marathon.

Following the recent death of Jackson at the age of 84,

today we're doing something a little bit different,

opening our archives to share this extended interview for the first time.

I'm Rainierenson Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline,

and this is the Frontline Dispatch.

Here is producer Jim Gilmard's 2008 interview with the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

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