Jesse jackson and biography
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Jackson, Jesse Louis
October 8, 1941
In 1966, Jesse Jackson began to lead Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) schema in Chicago. Often seen as Martin Luther King’s protégé, Jackson quickly earned a place among King’s inner circle. Although King found Jackson’s ambition troubling at times, SCLC executive vice president Andrew Young called Jackson “a natural-born leader” (Frontline, “Interview with Andrew Young”).
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on 8 October 1941 to an unmarried, teenage mother. Jackson was both an honor student and class president in high school, and he received an athletic scholarship to the University of Illinois in 1959. He moved back to South Carolina after one year, however, transferring to Greensboro’s North Carolina A & T College. In Greensboro, he became active in the civil rights movement, joining the local Congress of Racial Equality chapter and partici
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Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an Americanchurch minister, activist and politician.[1] Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns, in Greenville, South Carolina.[2] His mother, Helen Burns, was 16 years old at the time he was born.[2] She never married his father, Noah Louis Robinson.[2] When Jackson was two, his mother married Charles Jackson. Jesse was raised by his grandmother Matilda until he was 13. In 1957, he returned home when his step-father adopted him.[2]
Early life and civil rights
[change | change source]After he graduated from high school, Jackson had an offer to play professional baseball from the Chicago White Sox.[3] He also received a scholarship to play college football at the University of Illinois, which he accepted.[3] He later transferred to North Carolina A&T.[3] He was one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s main organizers in Chicago for the Southe
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Jesse Jackson
(1941-)
Who Is Jesse Jackson?
While an undergraduate, Jesse Jackson became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1965, he went to Selma, Alabama, to march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1980s, he became a leading national spokesman for African Americans. He was later appointed special envoy to Africa, and in 2000 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In late 2017, the civil rights leader announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
Early Years & Education
A pioneering and controversial civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson was born as Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. His parents, Helen Burns, a high school student at the time of her son's birth, and Noah Robinson, a 33-year-old married man who was her neighbor, never married.
A year after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker, who later adopted Jesse. In the small, Black-and-white