• JESSE JACKSON POSTERS
Celebrate Black History Month

Jesse Jackson

“Where there is hope there is life, where there is life there is possibility, and where there is possibility change can occur.”- Jesse Jackson

Poster Text: Jesse Jackson is a political leader and a minister. He was born in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1965, he went to work for Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian leadership conference. Later, he formed his own group, People United to Serve Humanity, or PUSH. PUSH works, among other things, to help African Americans gain greater economic power. In 1984 and 1988, he was a candidate to be the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

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Jesse Jackson Wall Poster

Poster Text: On the night of July 19, 1988, under the hot glare of TV lights, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stood before thousands of people gathered for the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta and delivered a speech that former president Jimmy Carter called "the best speech ever given at a convention, certainly in my lifetime." Although the Rev. Jackson's candidacy for U.S. president had ended in disappointment only days earlier, he brought the crowd to its feet with a stirring, emotional address in which he reached out to the nation's poor and urged them to "keep hope alive!". By the time he finished, those who were not cheering were wiping away tears.

When he was born in October of 1941, few people would have guessed that Jesse Jackson would one day come closer to winning the White House than any other Aftrican American man in history. His mother, Helen Burns, was 16 years old and unmarried when Jesse was born. Two years later, she married a nam named Charles Jackson, who eventually adopted Jesse. Jesse's boyhood home in Greenville, South Carolina, was a three-room cottage with no running water and an outdoor toilet.

But early on, people knew Jesse was going to be special. In school he was an honors student and a top athlete in three sports. He was offered a scholarship to attend the University of Illinois, but after his freshman year he transferred to North Carolina A & T, a largely black school in Greensboro. There, he became active in the growing civil rights movement and he met Jacqueline Lavinia Brown – the woman who became his wife.

Soon Jesse Jackson was known as a leader in the struggle for racial equality. In 1965 he joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The civil rights organization created by Martin Luther King, Jr. The Rev. Jackson headed up the SCLC's efforts in Chicago and soon became an important aide to Dr. King. After King's assassination, in 1968, the Rev. Jackson continued his efforts to help blacks through organizations such as Operation Breadbasket and People United to Serve Humanity, or PUSH. In 1984, he ran for president for the first time, losing the Democratic nomination to Walter Mondale. In 1988, the battle was between the Rev. Jackson and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Even though Governor Dukakis became the nominee, Jesse Jackson won several important state contests during the campaign.

In 1990, the Rev. Jackson ran for and won the post of "shadow senator" for Washington, D.C., which made him a non-voting member of Congress representing citizens in the District of Columbia. President Bill Clinton named the Rev. Jackson a special envoy to Africa in 1997. Today, Jesse Jackson is one of the nation's most articulate voices for African Americans and their concerns. He has inspired an entire generation of young people by challenging them to achieve and urging them to always remember "I am somebody!"

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The Struggle for Civil Rights, The Continuing Challenge - 1968 - Present Poster

The battle to end legal segregatin in America, which the Rev. King and others fought so hard for, had mostly been won by the end of the 1960s. Voting restritions were abolished in the mid-1960s. Black leaders then began to concentrate on getting more and more African-Americans registered to vote, And beginning in the late 1960s and early '70s an ever-increasing number of blacks did begin to win election to positions of power in government. By the 1980s, many of American's largest cities were being led by black mayors. In 1984, it seemed that the civil rights movement had finally "arrived" with the presidential campaign of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, once a close aide to the Rev. King. His strong showings in both the 1984 and 1988 primary elections proved that millions of Americans, both black and white, were now ready to take an an African-American candidate for President seriously. Still, big problems continue to challenge African-Americans. Family breakdown, drugs and crime, a lack of jobs, and continuing racial prejudices created a mood of deep despair, among many blacks left behind in the nation's run-down inner cities. Nevertheless, more and more African-Americans today are going to school and getting an education. And blacks in business, the arts, politics, entertainment, the universities and elsewhere are succeeding – and helping to change the nation – as never before. The long struggle for racial justice is not over. But it has made huge strides in improving the lives of African-Americans and in overcoming the nation's tragic legacy of racial strife and injustice.

Individuals on poster - Jesse Jackson, Barbara Jordan, Tom Bradley, Toni Morrison, Andrew Young, Roy Innis, Marian Wright Edelman, Benjamin Hooks.

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