Remembering Jesse Jackson's longtime advocacy for LGBTQ+ equality

"Jackson fought against racial segregation as a young man, both independently and as a staffer for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was among the people present when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. Jackson left the SCLC in 1971 and founded People United to Save Humanity, or Operation PUSH, in his adopted hometown of Chicago."

""America is not like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt - many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread," he said. "The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt.""

Jesse Jackson supported LGBTQ+ equality and championed inclusion across racial, economic, and social lines. He fought racial segregation early in life, worked as a staffer for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and witnessed King’s 1968 assassination in Memphis. Jackson left the SCLC in 1971 and founded People United to Save Humanity (Operation PUSH) in Chicago. He sought the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination, used his campaign to articulate a "rainbow coalition" that explicitly included lesbians and gays, and later merged that coalition with PUSH to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

Read at Advocate.com