Jackson, Jesse Louis (1941-…), is an African American civil rights activist, political leader, and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. In both campaigns, Jackson focused attention on the problems of African Americans and other minority groups. Jackson also led efforts to register more Black voters and to increase representation of minority groups at the 1984 and 1988 Democratic national conventions. He failed to get the presidential nomination at either convention. But he gained fame as one of the most effective orators in U.S. politics.
Jackson was born on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. He graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and attended the Chicago Theological Seminary, leaving in 1966 to work in the civil rights movement. Many years later, Jackson completed his coursework at the seminary. He received a Master of Divinity degree in 2000. From 1966 to 1971, he was director of Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In this role, he persuaded many white-owned companies to hire Black workers and to sell products made by Black-owned firms.
In Chicago in 1971, Jackson founded People United to Save Humanity (PUSH), an organization devoted to gaining economic power for Black Americans. In the mid-1970’s, the organization’s name was changed to People United to Serve Humanity. It was also known as Operation PUSH. Jackson directed Operation PUSH until 1984, when he founded and became head of the Rainbow Coalition. The coalition was a group dedicated to gaining political power for Black people and others. In 1995, Jackson resumed his leadership of Operation PUSH while continuing to head the Rainbow Coalition. In 1996, the two organizations merged as the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and Jackson became the new group’s president.
Jackson has made several trips abroad that have resulted in the freeing of hostages or other prisoners. In 1984, for example, he obtained the release of a captured U.S. airman whose plane had been shot down by Syrian forces in Lebanon. In 1999, Jackson helped arrange the release of three U.S. soldiers who had been taken prisoner by Yugoslavia.
In November 1999, Jackson led protests against a school district in Decatur, Illinois. The district had expelled six African American high school students for two years for allegedly starting a fight during a football game. Jackson claimed the so-called “zero tolerance” policies of many schools against violence were unfair. The district later reduced the students’ expulsions to one year.
Jackson was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1989 for his civil rights and political achievements. From 1990 to 1996, he served as a nonvoting member of the U.S. Senate from the District of Columbia. The position carried no salary and no legislative responsibility. Jackson’s main duty in the position was to lobby for statehood for the District of Columbia.
In 2001, Jackson revealed that he was the father of a child born outside of his marriage in 1999. Some people claimed that this revelation weakened his authority as a moral and religious leader.
Jackson’s son Jesse, Jr., represented an Illinois district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 until his resignation in 2012. Jackson and his son are coauthors of Legal Lynching (1996), a book that protests the death penalty. Keeping Hope Alive: Sermons and Speeches of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. was published in 2019.
