Jackson, Jesse, 1941-

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 <i>Both Sides with Jesse Jackson</i> on CNN from 1992 to 2000.</p>

<p>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). The family has some Cherokee roots. 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.</p>

<p>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 that predominantly white school, Jackson transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically black university in Greensboro, North Carolina. Accounts of the reasons for this transfer differ. 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.</p>

<p>The 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 forty years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice. On August 9, 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.</p>

<p>Reverend Jackson has been called the “Conscience of the Nation” and “the Great Unifier,” challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and humane priorities for the benefit of all. He is known for bringing people together on common ground across lines of race, culture, class, gender and belief.</p>

<p>Born on October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jesse Jackson graduated from the public schools in Greenville and then enrolled in the University of Illinois on a football scholarship. He later transferred to North Carolina A&T State University and graduated in 1964. He began his theological studies at Chicago Theological Seminary but deferred his studies when he began working full-time in the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was ordained on June 30, 1968 by Rev. Clay Evans and received his earned Master of Divinity degree from Chicago Theological Seminary in 2000.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>In October 1997, Reverend 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.</p>

<p>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. In 1965, he became a full-time organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was soon appointed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to direct the Operation Breadbasket program. In December of 1971, Reverend Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago, IL. The goals of Operation PUSH were economic empowerment and expanding educational, business and employment opportunities for the disadvantaged and people of color.</p>

<p>Prominent civil rights activist and political leader Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. was born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina to Helen Jackson and Noah Robinson. His mother later remarried Charles Henry Jackson, who formally adopted Jackson and his brother Charles. Jackson received his high school diploma from Sterling High School in Greenville, and in 1959, he received an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After his first year, Jackson then transferred to North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, North Carolina.</p>

<p>At North Carolina A&T, Jackson continued to excel in sports. He was an honor student and president of his student body. On December 31, 1962, Jackson married college classmate, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, in Greenville. Returning to North Carolina A&T, he became involved in the Civil Rights Movement joining the Greensboro chapter of the Council on Racial Equality (CORE). In 1963, Jackson helped to organize several sit-ins, desegregating local restaurants and theaters in Greensboro. Jackson was chosen as field director of CORE's southeastern operations, and president of the North Carolina Intercollegiate Council on Human Rights. In 1964, he also served as a delegate at the Young Democrats National Convention. In the same year, Jackson graduated from North Carolina A&T with a B.S. degree in sociology. He then received a Rockefeller grant to begin his postgraduate studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.</p>

<p>In 1965, Jackson left the seminary to join Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to march in Selma, Alabama. At this time, Jackson became an ordained minister, although he had not returned to the seminary. In 1966, Dr. King appointed Jackson to SCLC's Chicago economic program, Operation Breadbasket. The goal of Operation Breadbasket was to foster the economy of African American business owners and provide employment growth for African American workers. On December 25, 1971, Operation Breadbasket was renamed Operation PUSH - People United to Serve Humanity.</p>

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