Reverend 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. senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997.

He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. is his eldest son. Jackson hosted ''Both Sides with Jesse Jackson'' on CNN from 1992 to 2000.

Early life and education

Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns (1924–2015), a 16-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Louis Robinson (1908–1997). His ancestry includes Cherokee, enslaved African-Americans, Irish planters, and a Confederate sheriff. Robinson was a former professional boxer who was an employee of a textile brokerage and a well-known figure in the black community. One year after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who later adopted the boy. Jesse was given his stepfather's name in the adoption, but as he grew up he also maintained a close relationship with Robinson. He considered both men to be his fathers.

As a child, Jackson was taunted by other children about his out-of-wedlock birth and has said these experiences helped motivate him to succeed. Living under Jim Crow segregation laws, Jackson was taught to go to the back of the bus and use separate water fountains—practices he accepted until the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. He attended the racially segregated Sterling High School in Greenville, where he was elected student class president, finished tenth in his class, and earned letters in baseball, football, and basketball.

Upon graduating from high school in 1959, he rejected a contract from a minor league professional baseball team so that he could attend the University of Illinois on a football scholarship. After his second semester at the predominantly white school, Jackson transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically black university in Greensboro, North Carolina. Accounts of the reasons for the transfer differ, though Jackson has said that he changed schools because racial prejudice prevented him from playing quarterback and limited his participation on a competitive public-speaking team.

Writing an article on ESPN.com in 2002, sociologist Harry Edwards noted that the University of Illinois had previously had a black quarterback, but also noted that black athletes attending traditionally white colleges during the 1950s and 1960s encountered a "combination of culture shock and discrimination". Edwards also suggested that Jackson had left the University of Illinois in 1960 because he had been placed on academic probation, but the school's president reported in 1987 that Jackson's 1960 freshman year transcript was clean and said he would have been eligible to re-enroll at any time.

At A&T, Jackson played quarterback and was elected student body president. He became active in local civil rights protests against segregated libraries, theaters, and restaurants. He graduated with a B.S. in sociology in 1964, then attended the Chicago Theological Seminary on a scholarship. He dropped out in 1966, three classes short of earning his master's degree, to focus full-time on the civil rights movement. He was ordained a minister in 1968 and was awarded a Master of Divinity Degree in 2000 based on his previous credits earned plus his life experience and subsequent work.

Civil rights activism

The Greenville Eight

On July 16, 1960, while home from college, Jackson joined seven other African Americans in a sit-in at the Greenville Public Library in Greenville, South Carolina, which only allowed white people. The group was arrested for "disorderly conduct". Jackson's pastor paid their bond, the ''Greenville News'' said. DeeDee Wright, another member of the group, later said they wanted to be arrested "so it could be a test case." The Greenville City Council closed both the main library and the branch black people used. The possibility of a lawsuit led to the reopening of both libraries September 19, also the day after the ''News'' printed a letter written by Wright.

SCLC and Operation Breadbasket

Jackson has been known for commanding public attention since he first started working for Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965 he participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches organized by James Bevel, King and other civil rights leaders in Alabama. Impressed by Jackson's drive and organizational abilities, King soon began giving Jackson a role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), though he was concerned about Jackson's apparent ambition and attention-seeking. When Jackson returned from Selma, he was charged with establishing a frontline office for the SCLC in Chicago.

In 1966 King and Bevel selected Jackson to head the Chicago branch of the SCLC's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket and he was promoted to national director in 1967. Operation Breadbasket had been started by the Atlanta leadership of the SCLC as a job placement agency for blacks. Under Jackson's leadership, a key goal was to encourage massive boycotts by black consumers as a means to pressure white-owned businesses to hire blacks and to purchase goods and services from black-owned firms.

T. R. M. Howard, a 1950s proponent of the consumer boycott tactic, soon became a major supporter of Jackson's efforts – donating and raising funds, and introducing Jackson to prominent members of the black business community in Chicago. Under Jackson's direction, Operation Breadbasket held popular weekly workshops on Chicago's South Side featuring white and black political and economic leaders, and religious services complete with a jazz band and choir.

Jackson became involved in SCLC leadership disputes following King's assassination on April 4, 1968. When King was shot, Jackson was in the parking lot one floor below. Jackson told reporters he was the last person to speak to King, and that King died in his arms – an account that several King aides disputed. In the wake of King's death, Jackson worked on SCLC's Poor People's Crusade in Washington, D.C., and was credited with managing its 15-acre tent city – but he began to increasingly clash with Ralph Abernathy, King's successor as chairman of the SCLC. In 1969 ''The New York Times'' reported that several black leaders viewed Jackson as King's successor and that Jackson was one of the few black activists who was preaching racial reconciliation.

Jackson was also reportedly seeking coalition with whites in order to approach what were considered racial problems as economic and class problems. "When we change the race problem into a class fight between the haves and the have-nots, then we are going to have a new ball game", he said. In the 21st century, some public school systems are working on an approach for affirmative action that deals with family income rather than race, recognizing that some minority members have been very successful. ''The Times'' also indicated that Jackson was being criticized as too involved with middle-class blacks, and for having an unattainable goal of racial unity.

In the spring of 1971 Abernathy ordered Jackson to move the national office of Operation Breadbasket from Chicago to Atlanta and sought to place another person in charge of local Chicago activities, but Jackson refused to move. He organized the October 1971 Black Expo in Chicago, a trade and business fair to promote black capitalism and grass roots political power. The five-day event was attended by black businessmen from 40 states, as well as politicians such as Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes, and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Daley's presence was seen as a testament to the growing political and economic power of blacks.

In December 1971 Jackson and Abernathy had a complete falling out, with the split described as part of a leadership struggle between Jackson, who had a national profile, and Abernathy, whose prominence from the Civil Rights Movement was beginning to wane. The break began when Abernathy questioned the handling of receipts from the Black Expo, and then suspended Jackson as leader of Operation Breadbasket for not obtaining permission to form non-profit corporations. Al Sharpton, then youth group leader of the SCLC, left the organization to protest Jackson's treatment and formed the National Youth Movement. Jackson, his entire Breadbasket staff, and 30 of the 35 board members resigned from the SCLC and began planning a new organization. ''Time'' magazine quoted Jackson as saying at that time that the traditional civil rights movement had lost its "offensive thrust."

Operation PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition

People United to Save Humanity (Operation PUSH) officially began operations on December 25, 1971; Jackson later changed the name to People United to Serve Humanity. T. R. M. Howard was installed as a member of the board of directors and chair of the finance committee. At its inception, Jackson planned to orient Operation PUSH toward politics and to pressure politicians to work to improve economic opportunities for blacks and poor people of all races. SCLC officials reportedly felt the new organization would help black businesses more than it would help the poor.

In 1978 Jackson called for a closer relationship between blacks and the Republican Party, telling the Party's National Committee that "Black people need the Republican Party to compete for us so we can have real alternatives ... The Republican Party needs black people if it is ever to compete for national office."

In 1983 Jackson and Operation PUSH led a boycott against beer giant Anheuser-Busch, criticizing the company's level of minority employment in their distribution network. August Busch IV, Anheuser-Busch's CEO was introduced in 1996 to Yusef Jackson, Jesse's son, by Jackson family friend Ron Burkle. In 1998 Yusef and his brother Jonathan were chosen by Anheuser-Busch to head River North Sales, a Chicago beer distribution company, leading to controversy. "There is no causal connection between the boycott in 1983 and me meeting in the middle '90s and me buying this company in 1998," said Yusef.

In 1984 Jackson organized the Rainbow Coalition and resigned his post as president of Operation PUSH in 1984 to run for president of the United States, though he remained involved as chairman of the board. PUSH's activities were described in 1987 as conducting boycotts of business to induce them to provide more jobs and business to blacks and as running programs for housing, social services and voter registration. The organization was funded by contributions from businesses and individuals. In early 1987 the continued existence of Operation PUSH was imperiled by debt, a fact that Jackson's political opponents used during his race for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination. In 1996 the Operation PUSH and Rainbow Coalition organizations were merged.

International activism

Jackson's influence extended to international matters in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983 he traveled to Syria to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who was being held by the Syrian government. Goodman had been shot down over Lebanon while on a mission to bomb Syrian positions in that country. After Jackson made a dramatic personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Goodman was released. The Reagan administration was initially skeptical about Jackson's trip, but after Jackson secured Goodman's release, Reagan welcomed Jackson and Goodman to the White House on January 4, 1984. This helped to boost Jackson's popularity as an American patriot and served as a springboard for his 1984 presidential run. In June 1984 Jackson negotiated the release of 22 Americans being held in Cuba after an invitation by Cuban president Fidel Castro.

On the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Jackson made a trip to Iraq to plead with Saddam Hussein for the release of foreign nationals held there as a "human shield", securing the release of several British and 20 American individuals.

In 1997 Jackson traveled to Kenya to meet with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi as United States President Bill Clinton's special envoy for democracy to promote free and fair elections. In April 1999, during the Kosovo War, he traveled to Belgrade to negotiate the release of three U.S. POWs captured on the Macedonian border while patrolling with a UN peacekeeping unit. He met with then-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, who later agreed to release the three men.

His international efforts continued into the 2000s. On February 15, 2003, Jackson spoke in front of over an estimated one million people in Hyde Park, London at the culmination of the anti-war demonstration against the imminent invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and the United Kingdom. In November 2004 Jackson visited senior politicians and community activists in Northern Ireland in an effort to encourage better cross-community relations and rebuild the peace process and restore the governmental institutions of the Belfast Agreement.

In August 2005 Jackson traveled to Venezuela to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, following controversial remarks by televangelist Pat Robertson that implied that Chávez should be assassinated. Jackson condemned Robertson's remarks as immoral. After meeting with Chávez and addressing the Venezuelan Parliament, Jackson said there was no evidence that Venezuela posed a threat to the U.S. He also met representatives from the Venezuelan African and indigenous communities.

In 2005 Jackson was enlisted as part of the United Kingdom's Operation Black Vote, a campaign Simon Woolley ran to encourage more of Britain's ethnic minorities to vote in political elections ahead of the May 2005 General Election.

In 2009 Jackson served as a speaker for the International Peace Foundation on the topic "Building a culture of peace and development in a globalized world". He visited multiple locations in Malaysia, including the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in Thailand, including NIST International School in Bangkok.

Political activism

During the 1980s Jackson achieved wide fame as a politician and a spokesman for civil rights issues.

1984 presidential campaign

On November 3, 1983, Jackson announced his campaign for President of the United States in the 1984 election, becoming the second African American (after Shirley Chisholm) to mount a nationwide campaign for president as a Democrat.

In the Democratic primaries, Jackson, who had been written off by pundits as a fringe candidate with little chance at winning the nomination, surprised many when he took third place behind Senator Gary Hart and former Vice President Walter Mondale, who eventually won the nomination. Jackson garnered 3,282,431 primary votes, or 18.2% of the total, in 1984, and won primaries and caucuses in Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Mississippi. More Virginia caucus-goers supported Jackson than any other candidate, but Mondale won more Virginia delegates.

In May 1988 Jackson complained that he had won 21% of the popular vote but was awarded only 9% of the delegates. He afterwards stated that he had been handicapped by party rules. While Mondale (in the words of his aides) was determined to establish a precedent with his vice presidential candidate by picking a woman or visible minority, Jackson criticized the screening process as a " p.r. parade of personalities". He also mocked Mondale, saying that Hubert Humphrey was the "last significant politician out of the St. Paul–Minneapolis" area.

Relations with Jewish community

Jackson was criticized in the early 1980s for referring to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown" in remarks to a black ''Washington Post'' reporter. (" Hymie" is a pejorative term for Jews.) He had mistakenly assumed the references would not be printed. Louis Farrakhan made the situation worse by issuing, in Jackson's presence, a public warning to Jews that "If you harm this brother ackson it will be the last one you harm." During a speech before national Jewish leaders in a Manchester, New Hampshire synagogue, Jackson publicly apologized to Jews for the pejorative remarks, but did not denounce Farrakhan's warning. A rift between Jackson and many in the Jewish community endured at least through the 1990s.

Shortly after President Jimmy Carter fired U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young for meeting with Palestine Liberation Organization representatives, Jackson and other black leaders began publicly endorsing a Palestinian state, with Jackson calling Israel's prime minister a "terrorist" and soliciting Arab-American financial support. Jackson has since apologized for some of these remarks, but they badly damaged his presidential campaign, as "Jackson was seen by many conservatives in the United States as hostile to Israel and far too close to Arab governments."

According to a 1987 ''New York Times'' article, Jackson began attempting to improve his relationship with the Jewish community after 1984. In 2000, he was invited to speak in support of Jewish Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman at the Democratic National Convention.

On March 8, 2020, Jackson endorsed Jewish candidate Bernie Sanders for president.

1988 presidential campaign

In 1988 Jackson again sought the Democratic presidential nomination. According to a November 1987 ''New York Times'' article, "Most political analysts give him little chance of being nominated – partly because he is black, partly because of his unretrenched liberalism." But his past successes made him a more credible candidate, and he was both better financed and better organized than in 1984. Jackson once again exceeded expectations as he more than doubled his previous results, prompting R.W. Apple of ''The New York Times'' to call 1988 "the Year of Jackson".

In early 1988 Jackson organized a rally at the former American Motors assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, approximately two weeks after new owner Chrysler announced it would close the plant by the end of the year. In his speech he spoke out against Chrysler's decision: "We have to put the focus on Kenosha, Wisconsin, as the place, here and now, where we draw the line to end economic violence!" He compared the workers' fight to that of the 1965 Voting Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama. As a result, the UAW Local 72 union voted to endorse Jackson, even against UAW rules.

After winning 55% of the vote in the Michigan Democratic caucus, Jackson was considered the front-runner for the nomination, as he surpassed all the other candidates in total number of pledged delegates. But Jackson's campaign suffered a significant setback less than two weeks after the UAW endorsement when he narrowly lost the Colorado primary to Michael Dukakis and was defeated handily the following day by Dukakis in the Wisconsin primary. Jackson's showing among white voters in Wisconsin was significantly better than in 1984, but was also noticeably lower than pre-primary polling had predicted. The back-to-back victories established Dukakis as the front-runner. He went on to win the party's nomination, but lost the general election in November.

Jackson's campaign was also interrupted by allegations regarding his half-brother Noah Robinson Jr.'s criminal activity. Jackson had to answer frequent questions about Noah who was often called "the Billy Carter of the Jackson campaign".

At the conclusion of the Democratic primary season, Jackson had captured 6.9 million votes and won 11 contests: Seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina, and Vermont). Jackson also scored March victories in Alaska's caucuses and Texas's local conventions, despite losing the Texas primary.

Campaign platform

In both races Jackson ran on what many considered to be a very liberal platform. In 1987 ''The New York Times'' described him as "a classic liberal in the tradition of the New Deal and the Great Society". Declaring that he wanted to create a "Rainbow Coalition" of various minority groups, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Arab-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, family farmers, the poor

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