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Jesse Jackson: The civil rights activist with presidential ambitions ran in the 1984 and 1988 Democratic primaries

Photo: Meg Kinnard / AP

Renowned U.S. civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson announced on Saturday his resignation as chairman of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group he founded more than 50 years ago. During the organization's annual congress, the 81-year-old gave his farewell speech. He was honored with songs and words from other black activists and politicians. A video montage of Jackson's bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 was also shown.

Jackson has struggled with health problems in recent years and is dependent on a wheelchair. Surrounded on stage by his daughter Santita Jackson and his son, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, the once-ardent speaker spoke so softly that it was hard to understand him. "I'm somebody," he said. "Green or yellow, brown, black or white, we are all perfect in God's eyes. Everyone is someone. Stop the violence. Save the children. Keep hope alive."

Eight years ago, Jesse Jackson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In 2021, he suffered a series of health setbacks: gallbladder surgery, a corona infection that was followed by inpatient physical therapy, and a fall at Howard University in which he suffered a head injury.

»We are resigning, we are not retreating«

Reverend Frederick Douglass Haynes, "a longtime student of Rev. Jackson and supporter" of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will lead the organization, it said in a statement. Haynes is the pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, according to the church's website. Reverend is a title of Protestant clergy in the United States.

Jackson has been one of the most important civil rights activists in the United States for decades and an important voice in US politics. "We're resigning, we're not retreating," Jackson said in his farewell speech.

As 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 Chicago's South Side. The organization was later renamed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Among other things, the organization campaigned for blacks to be hired by companies and for voter registration in African-American communities.

Before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Jackson was the most successful African-American presidential candidate. The first black person ever to seek the presidential nomination for one of the two major US parties was Democratic Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1974, ten years before Jackson's first attempt.

jso/AP