Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH.

Articles by this author

Hundreds of community members line up early to pick up food boxes at Chelsea Collaborative during their weekly food drive in Chelsea, MA on July 15, 2020. (Photo: Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Myths and Lies About Poverty
“The poor will always be with us,” say the cynics. No doubt, some will always be wealthier than others. We wouldn’t want to live in a society that forced all to be equal. But poverty isn’t inevitable. The 30 million people in America who lived in poverty even before the pandemic when unemployment...
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Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on September 3, 2020, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, September 08, 2020
Trump Leads by Division, While Biden Leads by Multiplication
As the presidential campaigns heat up, Americans are provided with a stark choice of leaders. The visits to Kenosha of Donald Trump and Joe Biden provide clear contrasts for all to see. Kenosha erupted after a white policeman shot an unarmed Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back, leaving...
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Members of the Los Angeles Lakers kneel during the national anthem before the start of Game Five of the Western Conference First Round against the Portland Trail Blazers during the 2020 NBA Playoffs on August 29, 2020. (Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, September 01, 2020
America’s Greatest Athletes Are Standing Up, Calling This Country To Change
The greatest athletes in America are standing up for justice at a critical time. Despite unprecedented, multiracial demonstrations across the country protesting police violence against African Americans, the horrors keep on coming. Last week, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a...
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"Biden and Harris must be aggressive in putting forth their agenda, explaining its import and defending its elements," writes Jackson. "Trump has already made it clear that his campaign will be based on lies and libels about the Democratic agenda." (Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Democrats Must Ace the Agenda Test
In last week’s Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris passed the character test. Now as Trump rolls out his virtual convention, they must ace the agenda test. They need to argue the case for the bold agenda that this country desperately needs, and challenge Trump for his policy...
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Citizens wearing protective masks form lines to receive free food from a food pantry run by the Council of Peoples Organization on May 8, 2020 in Brooklyn. (Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Real People Are Paying the Ultimate Price for Trump's Monstrous Failures
Donald Trump’s ignorance and incompetence have cost American lives in the pandemic. Now his failure of leadership will add to the misery of millions of Americans force onto unemployment, the hunger of children at risk, the homelessness of families facing eviction. At a time when bold action is...
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"Enforcing the right to vote should not be controversial," writes Jackson. "It should enjoy support across the political spectrum." (Photo: Common Cause) Views
Tuesday, August 04, 2020
The GOP Is Trying to Steal Away Our Right to Vote—Time to Fight Like Hell to Keep It
August 6 is the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. If the constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War — the 13, 14 and 15th Amendments — were the “second founding” of democracy in America, the Voting Rights Act, which after nearly a century of segregation gave legal effect to the...
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Federal police officers stand guard during a protest in Portland, Oregon, on July 23, 2020. The officers fired tear gas. (Photo: Ankur Dholakia / AFP Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
We Don't Need Trump's Thugs in Chicago
“Hitler had his Brown shirts and Mussolini had his Black shirts, now Donald Trump has his camouflage shirts.” Thus began a statement signed by 15 distinguished interdenominational religious leaders in Chicago that I joined, including ministers, priests, and rabbis. Comparisons to Hitler are always...
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John has left us, but millions have picked up the baton that he once carried — focused now on equal justice under the law, and on ending the structural racism that makes racial inequality a pre-existing condition. (Photo: Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
John Lewis, a Founding Father of American Democracy
When John Lewis left us, editorials and columns paid tribute to his leadership, his courage, his moral example. The praise was well deserved. A broader context helps understand his true contribution. John Lewis was born one of 10 children of a sharecropper in Troy, Alabama. He should be remembered...
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Cynthia Bailey pumps her fist outside the National Civil Rights Museum following the annual Martin Luther King Day march on January 16, 2017 in Memphis, Tennessee. Hundreds marched from the north end of downtown Memphis in honor of the civil rights leader to the site where King was assassinated in 1968, which now houses the National Civil Rights Museum (Photo by Mike Brown/Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
A New Generation of Protest Holds Great Promise for America
The inspiring rise of a new generation protesting against racial injustice is driving a new era of change in America, like the generation that emerged 60 years ago to build the civil rights movement of that time. July 16, 1960 is marked in my memory: that is the day I joined seven other friends to...
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People draw messages with chalk in a Seattle intersection. (Photo: David Ryder/Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Too Many African American Children Are Born in Shackles
“I can’t breathe,” pled George Floyd in Minneapolis and Eric Garner in New York City and Javier Ambler in Austin, Texas, before police killed them. Amid the protests against brutality, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, whom police found asleep in his car, was shot twice in the back and killed. In Austin...
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