"Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in a tiny house in Greenville, S.C., where he began his lifelong work fighting for civil rights. While visiting home for Christmas break during his freshman year at University of Illinois, Jackson needed to borrow a book but couldn't get it from the town's white-only library. Six months later, on July 16, 1960, he and seven other students held a sit-in at the library and were arrested for protesting."
"His burgeoning activism would bring him in 1965 to march alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in Selma, Ala., answering King's call for supporters of a local voting rights campaign. He became the Chicago coordinator and a year later, in 1967, the national leader of the SCLC's Operation Breadbasket, which was dedicated to improving the economic conditions of Black communities in the U.S."
""Our father was a servant leader not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world," the Jackson family said in a statement. "We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.""
Rev. Jesse Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, and began civil rights work there. In 1960 he and seven students formed the Greenville Eight and were arrested after a sit-in at the whites-only library. Jackson transferred to North Carolina A&T College and in 1965 marched in Selma, Alabama, answering Martin Luther King Jr.'s call. He left Chicago Theological Seminary to join King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, became Chicago coordinator, and in 1967 led Operation Breadbasket to improve Black economic conditions. In the 1980s he reshaped Democratic politics with two presidential campaigns. His family called him a servant leader to the oppressed and overlooked. Public commemorations will take place in Chicago.
Read at www.npr.org
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