(Chicago) The Reverend Jesse Jackson announced on Saturday that he is stepping down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group he founded more than 50 years ago.
Mr Jackson, 81, announced his resignation during a low-key farewell speech at the organization’s annual convention which honored him with songs, kind words from other black activists and politicians as well as a video montage of his 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.
Mr Jackson, who has faced several health issues in recent years and uses a wheelchair, capped off the proceedings with muted remarks. The Reverend has been battling Parkinson’s disease for eight years. He underwent gallbladder surgery in 2021, then contracted COVID-19 which landed him in a physical therapy-focused facility and suffered a fall at Howard University, which left him with a head injury. .
Flanked by his daughter, Santita Jackson, and son, U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson, the once fiery speaker spoke so softly it was hard to hear him.
“I’m somebody,” he said. Green or yellow, brown, black or white, we are all perfect in the eyes of God. Everyone is someone. Stop the violence. Save the children. Keep hope. »
The Reverend Frederick Douglass Haynes, “a longtime student of Reverend Jackson and supporter” of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will take over as leader of the group, the coalition said in a statement.
PHOTO REX C. CURRY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Reverend Frederick Douglass Haynes
Mr. Haynes is the pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, according to the church’s website.
Motor force
Mr. Jackson has been a powerful civil rights advocate and a strong voice in American politics for decades.
A protege of the Reverend Martin Luther King, he broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 to form Operation PUSH, originally named People United to Save Humanity, in Chicago’s Southside. The organization was later renamed Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The group’s mission ranges from promoting minority hiring in the corporate world to voter registration campaigns in communities of color.
Mr. Jackson was a driving force in the modern civil rights movement, pushing for suffrage and education. Among other things, he joined the family of George Floyd at a memorial for the slain black man and participated in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns to counter black drug hesitancy.
Before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Mr. Jackson had been the most successful black presidential candidate. He won 13 primaries and caucuses in his campaign for the 1988 Democratic nomination, which was won by Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
PHOTO VINCE DEWIT, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
The Reverend Jesse Jackson, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, speaks to reporters during a brief layover at Logan Airport in Boston, Saturday, January 7, 1984.
It’s not time to retire
Mr Jackson announced he plans to continue working on social justice issues, including defending the three survivors of the racist 1921 Tulsa Massacre who this week saw a judge dismiss their lawsuit seeking reparations.
Ron Daniels, who works with the National African-American Reparations Commission, a panel working for financial payments to blacks in compensation for slavery, praised Mr Jackson, calling him a “synthesis” of Martin Luther King and another 1960s civil rights leader, Malcolm X.
“He is a genuine genius, with the unparalleled ability to formulate and articulate political strategy in a way ordinary people could understand,” he said.
Marcia Fudge, secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, thanked Mr. Jackson for paving the way for black politicians like her and for showing courage.
“You never left us, no matter how [les choses sont devenues] difficult,” she said.
Santita Jackson implored convention attendees to follow her father’s example and continue to fight for equality.