Description

View of Jesse Jackson, a civil rights activist and founder of Operation PUSH, at a press conference sponsored by the Atlanta Crusade Against Crime at Pascal's Motor Hotel on Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive), in Atlanta, Georgia.Jesse Jackson (1941- ) is a civil rights leader and Baptist minister. In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose Jackson to direct the Chicago chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) Operation Breadbasket, a program that employed boycotts to pressure businesses to hire African Americans and buy goods and services from black contractors. Jackson later founded two non-profit organizations advocating civil rights, social justice, and political activism: Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition. The two organizations merged in 1996. Jackson made two unsuccessful bids for the democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

Record Contributed By

Atlanta History Center

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia