Jesse Jackson Biography

Fast Facts

• Was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 2000
• Attended the University of Illinois and graduated from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina with a degree in Sociology in 1964
• First became involved with the civil rights movement while attending college in Greensboro, North Carolina
• Marched with Dr․ Martin Luther King, Jr․ in Selma, Alabama in 1965 and joined his Southern Christian Leadership Conference that same year
• Was the director of Dr․ King's Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Founded Operation PUSH in 1971 and later merged it with the National Rainbow Coalition, which he started in 1984, to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in 1996
• Has written several books including "Straight from the Heart" in 1987 and "Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty" in 1995
• Best known as a civil rights activist and Baptist minister who served as a Shadow Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997
• Campaigned for the U․S․ presidency in 1984, becoming only the second African-American to do so (the first being Shirley Chisholm), and tried again in 1988, when he finished second in the Democratic primaries
• Was staying in a hotel room one floor down when Dr․ King was assassinated on his balcony on April 4, 1968