Rev. Jesse L.

Jackson, Sr.

Founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The Conscience of the Nation and the Great Unifier — called the civil-rights movement's most enduring voice for inclusion, economic justice and peace. 1941–2026.

Read His Story

Honor the Legacy

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Honorary doctorates

Presidential Medal of Freedom

Organizations founded

Founder

Keep Hope Alive

Operation Breadbasket · Operation PUSH · Rainbow Coalition

The Road to Rainbow PUSH

Three Movements, One Mission

From Dr. King's Operation Breadbasket to Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition — the organizations Rev. Jackson built became the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996.

1966 · Operation Breadbasket

Appointed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the first director of SCLC's Operation Breadbasket in Chicago — combining theology and social justice to open jobs and contracts to Black businesses.

1971 · Operation PUSH

People United to Serve Humanity — economic empowerment, PUSH Excel for students, a weekly broadcast, and direct-action campaigns that moved major corporations toward affirmative action and minority suppliers.

1984 · National Rainbow Coalition

Launched after his first presidential campaign — equal rights for all Americans, voting rights, social programs and affirmative action for those left out.

Biography

A Life in the Movement

Born October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina. North Carolina A&T, Chicago Theological Seminary, ordained June 30, 1968 by Rev. Clay Evans. A full-time organizer for SCLC by 1965, he began his activism as a student in 1960 desegregating the Greenville public library.

Medal of Freedom 2000

Honorary doctorates for human and civil rights work — lecturing at Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton.

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Honorary doctorates

Honorary doctorates for human and civil rights work — lecturing at Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton.

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Honorary doctorates

Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa, appointed 1997.

Shadow Senator, D.C.

Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa, appointed 1997.

Shadow Senator, D.C.

Read the full biography

Reverend Jackson has been called the Conscience of the Nation and the Great Unifier, challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and humane priorities for the benefit of all.