Jesse Jackson
Born October 8, 1941 · Greenville, South Carolina, USA
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (October 8, 1941 — February 17, 2026) was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He founded of both entities that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is his eldest son. In an AP-AOL "Black Voices" poll in February 2006, Jackson was voted 'the most important black leader'.
Notable Appearances
Movies
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Texas, USA
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
Chicago at the Crossroad
MLK: The Assassination Tapes
Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special
University, Inc.
Uptight
Fantastic Lies
I Am MLK Jr.
Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic
Last Party 2000
We Are Many
A Man's Story
'85: The Greatest Team in Football History
4 Little Girls
LA 92
TV Shows
Democracy Now!
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
A Different World
World in Action
Dinah!
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child
The Chris Rock Show
Explained
Robins
Not Necessarily the News
Baseball
Joy Behar: Say Anything!
Tanner '88
Hollywood Black
Obama
Shut Up and Dribble
Tanner on Tanner
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union
More Movies
Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over
Wattstax
Anecdotes about Fidel
Operation Breadbasket
Contradictory America. Faith, hope, love and hate. Film 2
Nationtime: Gary
BaadAsssss Cinema
Route One/USA
Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound
The Journey of the African-American Athlete
Spiritual Audacity: The Abraham Joshua Heschel Story
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
King: Man of Peace in a Time of War
South to Black Power
A Decade of Struggle
Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham
America's Political Parties: Power and Principle
The Road to Mass Incarceration
In Remembrance of Martin
The Subtext of a Yale Education
Mahalia Jackson: The Power and the Glory
A Matter of Respect
Bernie Blackout
Crashing the Party
Decade
September First, Twenty-Twenty
Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy
Save the Children
Stax, le label soul légendaire
The Soul of Stax
The Nine Lives of Marion Barry
Rise Up: The Movement that Changed America
Punch 9 for Harold Washington
Michael Jackson Memorial
Hate Crimes in the Heartland
Loudmouth
Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story
Killing Martin Luther King Jr.
