“He didn’t give up when there were forces against the Voting Rights Act, or forces against the Equal Rights Amendment or addressing priorities at home or peace abroad,” said the younger Jackson. his father’s. Rev. Jackson, who founded the organization in 1996 to pursue social justice and civil rights issues.
Over the years, Reverend Jackson has led protests to desegregate theaters and restaurants. He marched in Selma, Alabama, after “Bloody Sunday” in 1965. And he was an assistant to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before Rainbow PUSH began. Just two years ago, Jackson led a march through Kenosha, Wisconsin, in response to the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two men and wounded a third during civil unrest.
Jackson, an 81-year-old Chicago resident, remains a familiar face on the civic and political scenes. He traveled to Washington to support his son when he was sworn in earlier this year. And just last month, he sat front and center at President Joe Biden’s speech on the economy in Chicago.
This weekend’s Rainbow PUSH convention includes a reception for former campaign workers from Jackson’s historic 1984 and 1988 presidential bids.
Jackson’s 1984 campaign “shocked many,” according to Chinta Strausberg in Crusader, which first reported on Jackson’s retirement. He ran “a very inclusive campaign despite the rejection of his candidacy by many key blacks,” the newspaper said.
In 1988, Jackson won Michigan “despite the fact that political pundits thought a black man would never win a northern industrial state,” political consultant Delmarie Cobb, who worked on Jackson’s campaigns, told the Illinois Playbook.
This report first appeared in the July 13 issue of the Illinois Playbook. Sign up for the newsletter here.
