By: Sema’Jae Tate

Jesse Jackson was an African American male born in Greenville, South Carolina on October 8th, 1941. He went to a racially segregated school, Sterling High School and Jesse said growing up with the Jim Crow segregation law he was taught/told to go to the back of the bus and use a  separate water fountain. He had to accept it and it was rough.

Jesse Jackson was also bullied growing up because of his out- of-wedlock birth. He said “Being bullied growing up motivated me to succeed.” 

After he graduated high school in 1959, he rejected a contract from a minor professional baseball team so he could attend the University of Illinois on a football scholarship, but after his second  semester at the predominantly white college, Jesse Jackson transferred to North  Carolina A&T, a historically black university. He said the reason he transferred was  because “Racial prejudice prevented me from playing quarterback and limited my playing.”   

At A&T Jackson played quarterback and was elected student president. He became active in local civil rights protests against segregated libraries, theaters and restaurants. During that time, he graduated with a B.S. Degree in 1964.

He then attended the Chicago Theological Seminary on a scholarship. He left the seminary in 1966, three classes short of earning his master’s degree, to focus full-time on the civil rights movement.

He was ordained a minister in 1968 and was awarded a Master of Divinity degree by  Chicago Theological Seminary in 2000, based on his previously earned credits and  his subsequent work and life experience. 

In 1965, Jesse Jackson participated in the Selma to Montgomery march, where he met and worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He subsequently joined the SCLC and despite everything that was going on  Jesse still wanted to push harder to make a difference.

After King was assassinated, it was a tragedy, but things couldn’t just stop there so Jesse Jackson started his own organization People United to Save Humanity (PUSH),  focusing on economic empowerment and, later, political advocacy.

Jesse Jackson died on February 17, 2026.