Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson     ( politician,  activist)
Jackson in 1983
Born	Jesse Louis Burns October 8, 1941  Greenville,  South Carolina,  U.S.
Died	February 17, 2026 (Age 84)
Ethnicity	Afro-American
Alma mater	•  North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University •  Chicago Theological Seminary
Children	•  Santita Jackson •  Jesse Jackson Jr. •  Jonathan Jackson
Spouse	Jacqueline Brown
Party	Democratic
Mark Gorton writes that "there are hints that Jesse Jackson may have been complicit in the conspiracy" to kill Martin Luther King.  United States Shadow Senator from the District of Columbia In office January 3, 1991 - January 3, 1997

Jesse Louis Jackson was an American civil rights campaigner, Baptist minister, and politician. He died on 17 February 2026 aged 84.

Having grown up in the segregated American South, campaigning for civil rights and economic justice alongside Dr Martin Luther King, Jackson was a lifelong campaigner for democratic participation.

From 1991 to 1997, Jesse Jackson was the elected Shadow Senator from the District of Columbia.

Campaigner

Jackson began his activism as a protégé of Martin Luther King, and founded the organisations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. As a young lieutenant of MLK and then as leader of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) he became in effect the leader of what was left of the civil rights movement old guard.

The New York Times wrote in 1972, Jackson is "good copy but safe copy; radical in style, not in action. The Jesse Jackson of today is not a threat to established institutions."

Extending his activism into international matters beginning in the 1980s, he became a critic of the Reagan administration and launched a presidential campaign in 1984. Initially seen as a fringe candidate, Jackson finished in third place for the Democratic nomination, behind former Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart. He continued his activism for the next three years, and mounted a second bid for president in 1988. Exceeding expectations once again, Jackson finished as the runner-up to Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis.

1988 presidential campaign

Using the phenomenon termed the "Massachusetts Miracle" to promote his campaign, Michael Dukakis sought the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States in the US/1988 Presidential election, prevailing over a primary field that included Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon, Gary Hart, Joe Biden and Al Gore, among others. Touching on his immigrant roots, Dukakis used Neil Diamond's ode to immigrants, "America", as the theme song for his campaign. Famed composer John Williams wrote "Fanfare for Michael Dukakis" in 1988 at the request of Dukakis's father-in-law, Harry Ellis Dickson. The piece was premiered under the baton of Dickson (then the Associate Conductor of the Boston Pops) at that year's Democratic National Convention (DNC). By early June 1988 Dukakis had secured enough votes in the final primary elections to win the nomination at the DNC, where the platform was scheduled to be considered and agreed.

Drafting the platform

At a meeting in Michigan on 12 June 1988, backers of the Dukakis presidential campaign yielded to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's demand that South Africa be branded a "terrorist state" in the Democratic Party's platform. Representatives of both men said they had bridged their differences on the South Africa issue, but Dukakis' aides refused to agree to the civil rights leader's demands that the platform call for higher taxes, support for a Palestinian homeland and a military spending freeze.

In their draft, the platform writers included broad proposals on education, civil rights, housing, health care and the economy, as well as on labour, energy and the environment. Neither Dukakis nor Jackson was at this first series of platform-drafting meetings at the luxury resort of Mackinac Island. The Massachusetts Governor, who favours strong sanctions and a divestment of United States industries in South Africa to protest its racial segregation policies, had resisted calling South Africa a "terrorist state".

On the economy, the draft was silent about raising taxes but said that after eight years of devastating Republican policies, Democrats want progressive values, with a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility. Jackson wanted higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for social programs and cut the deficit. Dukakis wanted more stringent collection of existing taxes.

Labelling South Africa a "terrorist state" because of apartheid and its alleged encroachment on neighbouring states would put it in the same category as Libya and Iran, countries considered outlaw states by the United States, and trigger automatic sanctions. Dukakis spokesmen refused to say they had surrendered on branding South Africa a "terrorist state". His foreign policy adviser, Madeleine Albright, told reporters the dispute involved a semantical difference.

Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson agree to call apartheid South Africa a "terrorist state"

But although the platform language on South Africa was incomplete, supporters of both Dukakis and Jackson said it would describe South Africa as a "terrorist state". Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jackson's chief representative at the meeting, said:

"We are very pleased the Governor has come to the Jackson position on this issue." Ms Norton also said enormous progress had been made on differences over domestic issues between Gov. Dukakis and Rev. Jackson, who had threatened platform fights at the convention.

The double standards on "terrorism"

The agreed Democratic platform position on apartheid South Africa being regarded as a "terrorist state" was highlighted by former British diplomat Patrick Haseldine in this letter published in The Guardian on 7 December 1988:

It is all very well for Mrs Thatcher to inveigh against the Belgians and the Irish with such self-righteous invective. Naturally, she would not care to admit it but in the not too distant past her allegations of being soft on "terrorism" and allowing political considerations to override the due legal process could have been levelled at Mrs Thatcher herself.

Remember the Coventry Four? These were the four (white) South Africans brought before Coventry magistrates in March 1984 and remanded in custody on arms embargo charges. Rumour has it that Mrs Thatcher was rather annoyed with the over-zealous officials who caused the four military personnel to be arrested in Britain. Rightly, she refused to accede to the South African embassy's demand for the case to be dropped but she was keen for the embassy to know precisely how the legal hurdles governing their release and the return of their passports could be swiftly overcome. Thus the First Secretary at the embassy stood bail for the Coventry Four, having declared in court that he was waiving his diplomatic immunity. (The embassy did not, however, formally confirm the waiver.) Then a petition to an English Judge in Chambers secured the repatriation of the four accused.

Clearly, Mrs Thatcher wanted the four high-profile detainees safely out of UK jurisdiction, back in South Africa and off the agenda well before her June 1984 talks at Chequers with the two visiting Bothas (P W Botha and Pik Botha). Strange that Pik Botha, the foreign minister, was able to find an excuse for not allowing the Coventry Four to stand trial in the Autumn of 1984.

Stranger still that Mrs Thatcher failed to denounce Mr Botha's refusal to surrender the four 'terrorists' (cf declaration by U.S. Governor Michael Dukakis that South Africa is a 'terrorist state').

MLK assassination

In his 2014 essay entitled "The Political Dominance of The Cabal", Mark Gorton writes that "there are hints that Jesse Jackson may have been complicit in the conspiracy" to kill Martin Luther King.

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