Preston Love Jr. is an American politician, professor, author and activist who served as

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson ( né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senato ...

campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed * Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * B ...

manager during the 1984 Democratic primaries. Love is the first Black person in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the so ...

to receive the support of a major political party for

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and ...

. He was endorsed by the

Nebraska Democratic Party The Nebraska Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Nebraska. Over 700 Democrats are elected across the state of Nebraska. Jane Kleeb is the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and also serves as the Midwest ...

for the

2020 United States Senate election in Nebraska The 2020 United States Senate election in Nebraska was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Nebraska, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other electi ...

to challenge incumbent Senator

Ben Sasse Benjamin Eric Sasse ( ; born February 22, 1972) is an American politician and academic administrator serving as the junior United States senator for Nebraska since 2015. He is a member of the Republican Party. Born in Plainview, Nebraska, Sas ...

Early life and education

Preston Love Jr. was born in the early 1940s to Betty and

Preston Love Preston Haynes Love (April 26, 1921 – February 12, 2004) was an American saxophonist, bandleader, and songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska, United States, best known as a sideman for jazz and rhythm and blues artists like Count Basie and Ray Char ...

. He graduated from Omaha Technical High School in 1960. The musician

Laura Love Laura Love (born 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and bass guitar player. Her style has been described as "Afro-Celtic" and has also been influenced by bluegrass. Personal life Love was born Laura Jones in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1960. She ...

is his younger half-sister. Love graduated from the

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Univer ...

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in economics and

Bellevue University Bellevue University is a private university in Bellevue, Nebraska. It opened in 1966 as Bellevue College and from the outset has focused on providing adult education and educational outreach. As of 2011, 80% of its undergraduates were aged 25 a ...

with a

Master of Professional Studies Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

degree. He played for

Nebraska Cornhuskers football The Nebraska Cornhuskers football team competes as part of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, representing the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in the West Division of the Big Ten. Nebraska plays its home games at Memorial Stadiu ...

and was drafted into the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at For ...

. Love played one season with the 1965 Lincoln Comets of the Pro Football League of America. Love worked as a junior executive in IBM and established the first retail computer store in Atlanta, Georgia. Love was inducted into the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Career

Love is the founder and CEO of a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

in Omaha called the Institute for Urban Development. In 2021, Love launched an effort to promote the history of African Americans in Omaha focused on facilitating tours in

North Omaha North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the ea ...

. Love worked as an adjunct professor at the

University of Nebraska Omaha The University of Nebraska Omaha (Omaha or UNO) is a public research university in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1908 by faculty from the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a private non-sectarian college, the university was originally kn ...

. He is a columnist for the ''

Omaha World-Herald The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper c ...

'' and a contributor to the ''Fine Lines Journal''.

Politics

Love served as vice-president of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

chapter in Omaha, Nebraska. He worked for

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as ma ...

during Chicago's 1983 mayoral election. During the 1984 Democratic primaries Love was selected by

to serve as Jackson's presidential campaign manager. Love worked as

Andrew Young Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...

's chauffer before his election as mayor and Young appointed Love as commissioner of planning for Atlanta. In 1990, Love formed an organization to recommend the addition of the contributions of black Nebraskans to the Nebraska Blue Book. In 1992, Love ran for a seat on the Metropolitan Utilities District board, but later withdrew to recover from his addictions. Love later became second associate chair in the

. Love supports freeing Edward Poindexter, who he knew as a child, from his life-sentence. Chris Janicek won the Democratic senatorial nomination for the

. However, during the campaign, he sent out sexually inappropriate text messages to staffers, causing the Nebraska Democratic Party to withdraw its support from him. The Nebraska Democratic Party attempted to replace Janicek with Alisha Shelton, but Janicek refused to drop out preventing the replacement. Love later announced his intention to run a write-in senatorial campaign and received the support of the Nebraska Democratic Party, making him the first black person to receive the support of a major party for

in Nebraska.

Bibliography

* Wisdom's Foresight: From Cataracts to Pandemic Vaccines (2021) * Your Bridge to History with Portia Love, illustrations by Regina Jeanpierre (2019) * A Clear Vision: From Cataracts to Pandemic Vaccines (2020) * The Jackson Papers: Post 1965 Voting Rights Act, Pre-Obama Era: The Jesse Jackson Run for President (2018) * Economic Cataracts Volume 1. (2015)

References

External links

Campaign website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Love, Preston, Jr 1940s births 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American politicians 21st-century American politicians African-American people in Nebraska politics Bellevue University alumni Candidates in the 2020 United States Senate elections Living people Nebraska Democrats Nebraska politicians University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni