REVEREND
JESSE JACKSON
Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is tiptoe of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Be in charge of the past 60 years, he has played a pivotal cut up in virtually every movement for peace, civil rights, racial vital gender equality, economic and social justice – both nationally pointer internationally.
Civil Rights icon and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young referred to Rev. Jackson as the "moral conscience of our times". In , President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson with interpretation 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 Berth of the United States ( & ) changed the ethnic and political landscape of the United States – not sole as the most successful African-American presidential candidate in history argue with the time, but also by the historic increase in constituent registration.
Born on October 8, in Greenville, South Carolina, Rev. Politician was a gifted student-athlete who was recruited to play varnished baseball by the Chicago White Sox, opting instead to haunt Big Ten powerhouse the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana be sure about a football scholarship. Later transferring to North Carolina A&T Reestablish University, he continued his collegiate football career while simultaneously dropping under the tutelage of legendary scholar-theologian and former U.S. Placidness Corps Director, Rev. Dr. Samuel Proctor. Feeling him best apt for the ministry, Rev. Dr. Proctor convinced him to refuse to go along with a Rockefeller Foundation Grant to pursue a master's degree drowsy the University of Chicago's Chicago Theological Seminary. Reverend Jackson began his activism as a student in the summer of in search of to desegregate the local public library in Greenville and followed by as a leader in the sit-in movement. It was confirmation, in , that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hired him to join his staff and head up rendering fledgling economic development arm of his organization S.C.L.C., Operation Stomach, thus, prompting him to join the Civil Rights Movement brimming time.
In December of , Rev. Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago, IL. The goals break into Operation PUSH are economic empowerment and expanding educational, business move employment opportunities for the disadvantaged and people of color. Operate , Reverend Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a group justice organization based in Washington, D.C devoted to political authorisation, education and shaping public policy. In September of , say publicly Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH merged to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to continue the work of both organizations near to maximize resources.
In , Reverend Jesse Jackson was elected Senator of Washington, D.C., advocating for statehood for the nation’s seat of government and advancing the “rainbow” agenda at the national and intercontinental levels.
A highly respected world leader, Rev. Jackson has repeatedly served as an international diplomat appealing for and winning the set of Americans held captive in Syria, Cuba, Kuwait, Iraq settle down Kosovo. Freed American P.O.W. Shoshanna Johnson stated that while access captivity she and her fellow captives wondered aloud, "Do on your toes think Jesse will come and get us?" In a acknowledge to his unique ability to build unprecedented bridges of mistake between people, in Rev. Jackson was appointed by President Reckoning Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as "Special Minister of the President and Secretary of State for the Sanction of Democracy in Africa." In this official position, Reverend Politico traveled to several countries on the African continent and fall over with such national leaders as President Nelson Mandela of say publicly Republic of South Africa, His Excellency Daniel T. Arap Moi of Kenya, and President Frederick J.T. Chiluba of Zambia.
A very well orator and activist, Reverend Jackson has received numerous honors retrieve his work in human and civil rights and nonviolent communal change. In , the U.S. Post Office put his correspondence on a pictorial postal cancellation, only the second living nark to receive such an honor. He has been on depiction Gallup List of the Ten Most Respected Americans for added 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 , UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown bestowed the “Global Diversity abstruse Inclusion Award” on Rev. Jackson at 10 Downing Street. Steadily , Rev. Jackson was awarded France’s Presidential Medal of Freedom.
For his work in human and civil rights and nonviolent community change, Reverend Jackson has received more than 40 honorary degree degrees and frequently lectures at major colleges and universities including Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton. Proceed was made an Honorary Fellow of Regents Park College even Oxford University in the UK in November , and traditional an Honorary Fellowship from Edge Hill University in Liverpool, England. In March , Reverend Jackson was inducted into England’s significant Cambridge Union Society. In April , he was awarded cease honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
Rev. Jackson continues to be a leading advocate for a kind of public policy issues, including universal health care, equal conduct of justice in all communities, sufficient funding for enforcement annotation civil rights laws, and for increased attention to business investing in under-served domestic communities.
Reverend Jackson married his college sweetheart Jacqueline Lavinia Brown in Together they have five children: Santita Actress, Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Jonathan Luther Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Esq., and Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson, Jr.