CHICAGO (AP) — Rev. Jesse Jackson announced Saturday that he will be stepping down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group he founded more than 50 years ago.
Jackson, 81, announced his resignation during a quiet farewell speech at the organization’s annual convention, during which the group paid tribute to him with songs, kind words from other black activists and politicians, and a video montage of Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.
Jackson, who has struggled with multiple health issues and uses a wheelchair in recent years, ended the event in muted remarks. Flanked by his daughter Santita Jackson and son, US Representative Jonathan Jackson, the once-fiery orator spoke so softly that it was difficult to understand.
“I am someone,” he said. “Green or yellow, brown, black or white, in God’s eyes we are all perfect. everyone is someone to stop the violence. save the children Keep hope alive.”
Paul Beaty via Associated Press
Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes, “a longtime disciple of Rev. Jackson and supporter” of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will lead the group, the coalition said in a statement. According to the church’s website, Haynes is the pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.
Jesse Jackson has been diagnosed Parkinson’s disease eight years ago. He initially suffered a series of health setbacks in 2021 gallbladder surgeryA Covid-19 infection That got him into a facility specializing in physical therapy and a fall at Howard University that caused a head injury.
Jackson has been a strong civil rights advocate and a powerful voice in American politics for decades.
A protégé of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 and founded Operation PUSH, originally called People United to Save Humanity, on the south side of Chicago. The organization was later renamed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The group’s mission ranges from promoting minority hiring in the corporate world to campaigning for voter registration in communities of color.
Jackson was a driving force in the modern civil rights movement, championing voting rights and education. Among other things, he accompanied George Floyd’s family to a memorial service for the murdered black man and took part in vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 to counter black people’s reluctance to take the drugs.
Before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Jackson was the most successful black presidential candidate. He won 13 primary elections and caucuses to win the 1988 Democratic nomination, which went to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Ira Schwarz via Associated Press
Jackson said in his remarks that he intends to continue campaigning on social justice issues, including campaigning for three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre who suffered a fatal blow this week Judges dismiss their lawsuit demand compensation.
“We’re stepping down, we’re not retiring,” Jackson said.
Ron Daniels, who works with the National African-American Reparations Commission, a body that advocates financial payments to black people in compensation for slavery, told conventioners that Jackson was a “synthesis” of King and another civil rights activist of the 1960s, Malcolm X, be .
“He’s a real genius,” Daniel said. “(Jackson) had an unparalleled ability to … formulate and articulate policies in a way that ordinary people could understand.”
Marcia Fudge, Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, thanked Jackson for paving the way for black politicians like her.
“Most people talk about a good game but don’t have courage,” she said. “But you never left us, no matter how hard it got.”
Santita Jackson urged convention-goers to follow her father’s example and keep fighting for equality.
“Rev. Jackson walked on the leg,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press reporter Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
