Jesse Louis Jackson (born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina) is a towering figure in American civil rights, a Baptist minister, and a pioneering politician. Rising from the segregated Jim Crow South, Jackson earned a football scholarship to the University of Illinois but transferred to the historically Black North Carolina A&T State University after facing racial discrimination on the team. He quickly became deeply involved in the civil rights movement, ultimately catching the attention of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By 1966, King appointed Jackson to direct Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Chicago. Following King's assassination in 1968—an event where Jackson was present, later leading to a complex historical narrative—he founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in 1971, and later the National Rainbow Coalition, eventually merging them into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996 to fiercely advocate for economic empowerment, voting rights, and corporate accountability for marginalized communities. Jackson revolutionized American electoral politics with his historic campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. As the first African American to mount a nationwide, highly competitive campaign for the presidency, his 1988 run was particularly groundbreaking; he won 11 primaries and caucuses, garnered nearly 7 million votes, and permanently shifted the Democratic Party's platform, directly paving the way for future minority leaders like Barack Obama. Beyond domestic politics, Jackson operated as a high-profile, audacious freelance diplomat. He successfully negotiated the release of American hostages and political prisoners in highly volatile international environments, including securing the release of a downed U.S. Navy pilot in Syria (1984), political prisoners in Cuba (1984), foreign nationals held by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Kuwait (1990) ahead of the Gulf War, and captured U.S. soldiers in Yugoslavia (1999). He also served as the "Shadow Senator" for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997, aggressively lobbying for D.C. statehood. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by Bill Clinton in 2000) and the Commander of the Legion of Honour from France (2021), Jackson's legacy is immense but deeply polarized. His unmatched oratorical skills, characterized by his signature rhyming cadence and refrains like "I Am - Somebody" and "Keep Hope Alive," mobilized millions globally. In his later years, despite a public diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in 2017, he remained an active presence in public life, protests, and the media. He officially stepped down as the president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in July 2023, handing over the reins after more than five decades of leadership. His life's work represents the crucial bridge between the classical civil rights movement of the 1960s and modern American progressive politics.