K'mari GreeneAfter dedicating more than 60 years of his life to fighting for the equal rights of African Americans and people of color in America, Rev. Jesse Jackson died at 84 on Tuesday, most likely from a rare neurodegenerative condition and Parkinson’s disease.
Jackson was an influential figure in the Civil Rights Movement and well known for his work alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and paving the way for Barack Obama as the first Black president.
“Growing up in the 1970s, then going to college in the 1980s, I don’t think people realize right now, but Jesse Jackson was as big as you can get,” Ernie Suggs, reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and former Campus Echo editor, said.
The activist and former U.S. Senator graduated from N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University, where he became student government president, quarterbacked the Aggie football team and crossed Omega Psi Phi fraternity, eventually becoming his chapter’s president.
Suggs had the opportunity to personally meet and form a relationship with Jackson in 1988 when he gifted him a maroon and gray N.C. Central University jacket alongside former Miss NCCU Sonya Laws.
“He was tall, he was good looking, he was this excellent speaker. He was affiliated with Martin Luther King Jr. He had run for president twice. He was a celebrity, so to speak,” Suggs said.
Following King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988. While he wasn’t nominated, he was one of the many leaders that left footprints for those following, such as former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama.
“Michelle and I will always be grateful for Jesse’s lifetime of service, and the friendship our families share,” Obama posted on Medium. “We stood on his shoulders.”
The Campus Echo reported on Jackson’s visit to NCCU on Oct. 18, 1983 to B.N. Duke Auditorium. More than 1,000 NCCU students filled the auditorium, 100 over capacity, to hear Jackson’s speech on the importance of voting.
“Exercise the right that you inherited and others earned for you,” Jackson said in his speech.
Andre Vann, Coordinator of University Archives and Instructor of Public History at NCCU, recalled taking a photograph with Jackson in 2012 when he visited campus to encourage students to get out and vote during Obama’s second campaign.
“The photo I have with him in 2012, there he is with his arm around you as if you were one of his own kin, that’s who he was,” Vann said. “Someone who was very comfortable with the world and willing to give of himself and his talents.”
In December 1996, Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, “a multi-racial, multi-issue, progressive, international membership organization fighting for social change.”
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition was formed by Jackson’s merging of two organizations he founded earlier: People United to Serve Humanity and the Rainbow Coalition. While they were two separate entities during their times, they both fought for a similar cause: equality.
“He could walk in a boardroom and talk about DEI, what people don’t want to talk about today,” Vann said. “But he could also be in the same room with the poor and marginalized and have that conversation because he had been there.”
Jackson not only had a massive impact on NCCU’s students like Suggs and Vann, but the entirety of America, reaching those who believe in equality for the United States. His legacy lives far beyond him and will echo through generations as the fight for Civil Rights continues.
