Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Senior
Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past 60 years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for peace, civil rights, racial and gender equality, economic and social justice – both nationally and internationally.
Civil Rights icon and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young referred to Rev. Jackson as the "moral conscience of our times". In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest Civilian honor. A master of the zeitgeist, Rev. Jackson’s formation of the Rainbow Coalition has prompted countless others to tout him as "the Great Unifier". Rev. Jackson’s two historic bids for the Presidency of the United States ( 1984 & 1988) changed the cultural and political landscape of the United States – not only as the most successful African-American presidential candidate in history at the time, but also by the historic increase in voter registration.
Born on October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Rev. Jackson was a gifted student-athlete who was recruited to play professional baseball by the Chicago White Sox, opting instead to attend Big Ten powerhouse the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana on a football scholarship. Later transferring to North Carolina A&T State University, he continued his collegiate football career while simultaneously falling under the tutelage of legendary scholar-theologian and former U.S. Peace Corps Director, Rev. Dr. Samuel Proctor. Feeling him best suited for the ministry, Rev. Dr. Proctor convinced him to accept a Rockefeller Foundation Grant to pursue a master's degree at the University of Chicago's Chicago Theological Seminary. Reverend Jackson began his activism as a student in the summer of 1960 seeking to desegregate the local public library in Greenville and then as a leader in the sit-in movement. It was then, in 1965, that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hired him to join his staff and head up the fledgling economic development arm of his organization S.C.L.C., Operation Breadbasket, thus, prompting him to join the Civil Rights Movement full time.
In December of 1971, Rev. Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago, IL. The goals of Operation PUSH are economic empowerment and expanding educational, business and employment opportunities for the disadvantaged and people of color. In 1984, Reverend Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a social justice organization based in Washington, D.C devoted to political empowerment, education and shaping public policy. In September of 1996, the Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH merged to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to continue the work of both organizations and to maximize resources.
In 1991, Reverend Jesse Jackson was elected Senator of Washington, D.C., advocating for statehood for the nation’s capital and advancing the “rainbow” agenda at the national and international levels.
A highly respected world leader, Rev. Jackson has repeatedly served as an international diplomat appealing for and winning the release of Americans held captive in Syria, Cuba, Kuwait, Iraq and Kosovo. Freed American P.O.W. Shoshanna Johnson stated that while in captivity she and her fellow captives wondered aloud, "Do you think Jesse will come and get us?" In a nod to his unique ability to build unprecedented bridges of understanding between people, in 1997 Rev. Jackson was appointed by President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as "Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa." In this official position, Reverend Jackson traveled to several countries on the African continent and met with such national leaders as President Nelson Mandela of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency Daniel T. Arap Moi of Kenya, and President Frederick J.T. Chiluba of Zambia.
A renowned orator and activist, Reverend Jackson has received numerous honors for his work in human and civil rights and nonviolent social change. In 1991, the U.S. Post Office put his likeness on a pictorial postal cancellation, only the second living person to receive such an honor. He has been on the Gallup List of the Ten Most Respected Americans for more than a dozen years. He has received the prestigious NAACP Spingarn Award in addition to honors from hundreds of grassroots, civic and community organizations from coast to coast. In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown bestowed the “Global Diversity and Inclusion Award” on Rev. Jackson at 10 Downing Street. In 2020, Rev. Jackson was awarded France’s Presidential Medal of Freedom.
For his work in human and civil rights and nonviolent social change, Reverend Jackson has received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees and frequently lectures at major colleges and universities including Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Regents Park College at Oxford University in the UK in November 2007, and received an Honorary Fellowship from Edge Hill University in Liverpool, England. In March 2010, Reverend Jackson was inducted into England’s prestigious Cambridge Union Society. In April 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
Rev. Jackson continues to be a leading advocate for a variety of public policy issues, including universal health care, equal administration of justice in all communities, sufficient funding for enforcement of civil rights laws, and for increased attention to business investment in under-served domestic communities.
Reverend Jackson married his college sweetheart Jacqueline Lavinia Brown in 1963. Together they have five children: Santita Jackson, Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Jonathan Luther Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Esq., and Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson, Jr.
