Jesse
Louis Jackson is an African-American civil rights leader and Baptist minister.
He
worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and was with him the day he was assassinated.
In 1971 he founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and in 1984
started the Rainbow Coalition as important vehicles for working social justice,
civil rights and political activism. Jesse Jackson was a candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. In the 1980s Jesse Jackson began to
become an important international voice for a better world, meeting with many
world leaders to promote democracy and freedom and helping to mediate international
disputes. He helped secure the release of an American pilot captured in Syria
in 1983 and then 22 Americans held in Cuba in 1984, and three US prisoners-of-war
during the Kosovo War in 1999. In a 2006 AP-AOL poll Jesse Jackson was voted "the
most important black leader." Jesse Jackson continues to be a leading voice
for nonviolence, racial and economic justice and equal rights for all. He has
received numerous awards for his dedication to a better world including America's
highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
