Born
Jesse Louis Jackson on October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, a city
beset with the problems of racial segregation. Jackson found sports to be
an outlet for his frustration with some of the segregation issues. He quickly
earned a scholarship to play football at University of Illinois in Chicago.
But he later received his degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
College in Greensboro, an institution for African American students. As a
college senior, he began to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Although
he was not in Greensboro when the four African American freshmen from his
college staged their famous Woolworth's sit-in in February 1960--the action
that incited sit down demonstrations through out the South. Jackson actively
encouraged fellow students to boycott and demonstrate against racial injustice
of the South. In the Mid-1960, Jackson began working for the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.). He helped found the Chicago branch of Operation
Breadbasket, as the economic arm of the S.C.L.C. In 1968, Dr. King was killed;
some believed that Jesse Jackson used the shooting of King for personal gain.
In reality, Jackson was victim of being in the wrong place at the right time.
The media used a still shot of him wearing a shirt sprayed with the blood
of King, shortly after his shooting. Somewhat anointing him, not Ralph Abernathy,
as King's successor. In 1971, Jackson was suspended from the S.C.L.C. after
the leadership accused him of using the organization to further his own personal
agenda. After being suspended from S.C.L.C., Jackson moved on to found several
new organizations, mainly Operation P.U.S.H. (People United to Save Humanity).
Throughout the years, Jackson has spoken out against racism, militarism, and
class divisions in America. He even propelled himself onto the political scene
when he tried to campaign for presidency in 1988. Jackson has spent much of
the last decade propelling himself onto the national political scene by traveling
to various countries to take part in peace negotiations.
