Whereas Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., an ordained Baptist minister and influential civil rights leader was born on October 8th, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina;

Whereas Rev. Jackson attended racially segregated schools, including Sterling High School, where he was elected student class president and graduated in 1959;

Whereas Rev. Jackson attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically Black university in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he served as student body president and a quarterback on the football team, and graduated in 1964 with a B.S. in sociology;

Whereas, following his graduation, Rev. Jackson joined the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., who selected him to be a leading organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the national director of Operation Breadbasket;

Whereas Rev. Jackson, at 30 years old, founded both Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) to initiate corporate action and government sponsorship, and the National Rainbow Coalition that raised awareness of numerous political issues;

Whereas, under Rev. Jackson’s leadership, massive boycotts by Black consumers were encouraged as a means to pressure White-owned businesses to hire Blacks and purchase services from Black-owned firms;

Whereas Rev. Jackson was a courageous advocate for civil and human rights in the United States and around the world, including his leadership in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, during which he was arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington, DC, while protesting apartheid and campaigned for United States corporations and colleges to divest from South Africa while the racist regime remained in power;

Whereas Rev. Jackson’s activism extended internationally in his rescue of Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman who was being held by the Syrian government, his negotiation of the release of 22 Americans being held in Cuba by then President Fidel Castro, and his trip to Iraq that secured the release of 20 American individuals from Saddam Hussein;

Whereas Rev. Jackson’s contribution to global conflict resolutions went beyond the United States, speaking to over 1,000,000 people in Hyde Park, London at the 2003 culmination of the anti-war demonstration, before serving as a speaker for the International Peace Foundation in 2009;

Whereas Rev. Jackson became the first African American man since Reconstruction to address a joint session of the Alabama Legislature, and the second African American to mount a nationwide campaign for president as a Democrat;

Whereas, in his historic runs for President in 1984 and 1988, Rev. Jackson won millions of votes in the Democratic primaries, finishing third in 1984 and second in 1988, and his groundbreaking campaigns opened the door of opportunity for other politicians of African American heritage, including Barack Obama, who was elected President in 2008, becoming the first African American President in the Nation’s history;

Whereas Rev. Jackson served as a shadow delegate and shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997;

Whereas Rev. Jackson was the beloved husband of author Jaqueline Jackie Brown, and a father of 6 children, including former Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois and current Representative Jonathan Jackson of Illinois;

Whereas Rev. Jackson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, but his diagnosis was changed in 2025 to progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological disorder with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease; and

Whereas Rev. Jackson would not have the Nation respond to his passing in grief, but rather with the courage to continue his legacy of 25 years of public service and dedication to promote civil rights for Black Americans: Now, therefore, be it