After his second semester at the predominantly white school, Jackson transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically black university in Greensboro, North Carolina. 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. Jackson (center) with members of the Student Government at North Carolina A&T, c. He attended the racially segregated Sterling High School in Greenville, where he was elected student class president, finished tenth in his class, and earned letters in baseball, football, and basketball. Living under Jim Crow segregation laws, Jackson was taught to go to the back of the bus and use separate water fountains-practices he accepted until the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Īs a child, Jackson was taunted by other children about his out-of-wedlock birth and has said these experiences helped motivate him to succeed. He considered both men to be his fathers. Jesse was given his stepfather's name in the adoption, but as he grew up he also maintained a close relationship with Robinson. One year after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who later adopted the boy. Robinson was a former professional boxer who was an employee of a textile brokerage and a well-known figure in the black community. His ancestry includes Cherokee, enslaved African-Americans, Irish planters, and a Confederate sheriff. Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 8, 1941, to Helen Burns (1924–2015), a 16-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Louis Robinson (1908–1997). He has been a critic of police brutality, the Republican Party, and conservative policies, and is regarded as one of the most influential African-American activists of the 21st century. Jackson hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000. Initially a critic of President Bill Clinton, he became a supporter. Jackson never sought the presidency again, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1990 for the District of Columbia, for which he would serve one term as a shadow delegate during the Bush and Clinton administrations. Exceeding expectations once again, Jackson finished as the runner-up to Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis. He continued his activism for the next three years, and mounted a second bid for president in 1988. Initially seen as a fringe candidate, Jackson finished in third place for the Democratic nomination, behind former Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart. Extending his activism into international matters beginning in the 1980s, he became a critic of the Reagan administration and launched a presidential campaign in 1984. Jackson began his activism in the 1960s and founded the organizations that merged to form the Rainbow/PUSH organization. He served in the United States Senate from 1991 to 1997 as a shadow delegate for the District of Columbia. during the civil rights movement, Jackson maintained his status as a prominent civil rights leader throughout his political and theological career for over seven decades. Beginning as a young protégé of Martin Luther King Jr. Jesse Louis Jackson ( né Burns born October 8, 1941) is an American civil rights activist, politician, and ordained Baptist minister.
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