Future American civil rights leader, Baptist Minister, and politician Jesse Jackson was born October 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina. He adopted is stepfather’s name at the age of fifteen. He attended the University of Illinois, on a football scholarship, after 1960 he transferred to Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina and got his B.A. in sociology.
Jesse moved to Selma, Alabama to march with Martin Luther King, Jr. later he worked for King’s Christian Leadership Conference. He helped create the Operation Breadbasket branch in Chicago and served as the national director from 1967 to 1971.afeter King’s assassination Jackson was accused of using the organization for his own personal gain, he was suspended by the organization in 1971. After that he founded Operation Push (People United to Save Humanity) based in Chicago the organization and in 1983 he established the National Rainbow Coalition, and sought equal rights for African American, women, and homosexuals. His two organizations merged in 1996 and formed Rainbow/Push Coalition.
http://www.biography.com/articles/Jesse-Jackson-9351181?part=1
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