Jackson, Jesse (1941–)

Jesse Jackson's social activism continues to alter conventional conceptions of the roles private citizens may play in national and international politics. Instrumental at the beginnings of sit-in demonstrations while a student at North Carolina A&T College in the early 1960s, Jackson left Chicago Theological Seminary in 1965 to join Martin Luther King, Jr., in the voting rights marches in Selma, Alabama. Subsequently, Jackson assumed leadership positions in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, Jackson assumed that he would inherit black leadership in the United States. However, as struggles for the mantle of the “great black leader” continued, Jackson redirected his efforts.

Reverend Jackson's activism during the 1970s and early 1980s increasingly focused on educational and economic empowerment for blacks and other disenfranchised Americans. He served as the executive director of Operation Breadbasket, an initiative to provide food for the poor, and in 1971 inaugurated People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). He parlayed his Rainbow Coalition of poor blacks, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and poor southern whites into national campaigns for the Democratic Party's 1984 and 1988 presidential nominations. While unsuccessful in these bids, Jackson consolidated his increasingly internationally recognizable persona with his Rainbow-PUSH initiative for a “progressive” foreign policy. In arguing for the possibilities for a New World Order, in a London speech in 1981, Jackson called for a humane international order with human rights for all human beings. In direct violation of the Logan Act (a 1799 U.S. law prohibiting private citizens from engaging in international diplomacy), during his 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns and later, Jackson embarked on diplomatic trips to the Middle East, Latin America, South Africa, and Cuba. His “constructive engagement” as a citizen diplomat drew criticism from many quarters of government and the media. However, in his missions to South Africa, he influenced the United States' change in foreign policy enacted in the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, and served as one of President Bill Clinton's election observers in South Africa's first comprehensive elections after the collapse of apartheid in 1995. Jackson's fact-finding missions to Nicaragua and efforts to promote dialogue between the Sandinistas and Contras were earnest attempts to bring a new morality to U.S. foreign policy. His efforts to gain the release of U.S. pilot Robert Goodman, shot down over Syria; persuading Cuba's Fidel Castro to free 22 U.S. prisoners and 26 Cuban political prisoners; and the hostage release of 47 U.S. prisoners held in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 all contribute to the legend of Jesse Jackson's humanitarian exploits.

In creating new possibilities for activism, Jackson blurs the bright lines among the media, politics, morality, and private citizenship. At a time when blacks in the United States still struggled for identity and political power, Jackson served as the unofficial representative for African American foreign policy. [Page 769]This strategy, albeit unsanctioned by U.S. political elites, helped create an international presence and voice for oppressed blacks in America and brought them closer to the political justice and racial equality Jackson continually fought for at home and abroad.

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