October 8, 1941:
On this day activist and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson was born.
Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. is his eldest son. Jackson hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000.
Ebony Magazine named Jackson to its “100 most influential black Americans” list in 1971.[17]
In 1979, Jackson received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged.[80]
In 1989, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[81]
In 1991, Jackson received the American Whig-Cliosophic Society‘s James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.[82]
In 1999 he received the Golden Doves for Peace journalistic prize issued by the Italian Research Institute Archive Disarmo.[83]
Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest honor bestowed on civilians in August 2000.[84]
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Jackson on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[9]
In 2008, Jackson was presented with an Honorary Fellowship from Edge Hill University.
In an AP-AOL “Black Voices” poll in February 2006, Jackson was voted “the most important black leader”
