Reverend Jesse Jackson steps down as leader of civil rights group he founded in 1971

The veteran American civil rights activist, 81, announced on Saturday that he will step down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition

Jackson, a protégé of Martin Luther King Jnr, ran for US president in 1984 and 1988. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 8 years ago

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Reverend Jesse Jackson announces that he is stepping down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in Chicago, US on Saturday. Photo: AP

Published: 3:07am, 16 Jul 2023

Reverend Jesse Jackson announced on Saturday that he will step down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group he founded more than 50 years ago.

Jackson, 81, announced his resignation during a quiet farewell speech at the organisation’s annual convention, where the group paid tribute to him with songs, kind words from other black activists and politicians, and a video montage of Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

Jackson, who has dealt with several health problems in recent years, capped the proceedings with muted remarks from a wheelchair. Flanked by his daughter, Santita Jackson, and his son, US congressman Jonathan Jackson, the once-fiery orator spoke so softly it was difficult to hear him.

Jesse Jackson speaks a memorial for George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US in 2020. Photo: Reuters

“I am somebody,” he said. “Green or yellow, brown, black or white, we’re all perfect in God’s eyes. Everybody is somebody. Stop the violence. Save the children. Keep hope alive.”

Reverend Frederick Douglass Haynes, “a long-time student of Reverend Jackson and supporter” of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will take over as the group’s leader, the coalition said in a statement. Haynes is the pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, according to the church’s website.

Jesse Jackson has been battling Parkinson’s disease for the past eight years. He suffered a host of health setbacks in 2021, beginning with gallbladder surgery, a Covid-19 infection that landed him in a physical therapy-focused facility and a fall at Howard University that caused a head injury.

Jackson has been a powerful advocate for civil rights and a strong voice in American politics for decades.

A protégé of Reverend Martin Luther King Jnr, he broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 to form Operation PUSH, initially named People United to Save Humanity, on Chicago’s South Side. The organisation was later renamed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The group’s mission ranges from promoting minority hiring in the corporate world to voter registration drives in communities of colour.