The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past forty years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice. On August 9, 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The medal acknowledges a life of service and a concern for the least fortunate.

Reverend Jackson has been called the “Conscience of the Nation” and “the Great Unifier,” challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and humane priorities for the benefit of all. He is known for bringing people together on common ground across lines of race, culture, class, gender and belief.

In 1965, he became a full-time organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was soon appointed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to direct The Operation Breadbasket program. In December of 1971, Reverend Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago, IL. In 1984, he founded the National Rainbow Coalition and the two organizations merged in 1996 to become the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

His groundbreaking runs for the presidency in 1984 and 1988 were the logical extension of the civil and voting rights victories won in earlier decades. His campaigns activated and inspired a wave of political empowerment, resulting in the election of thousands of new African American, Latino, and Asian Americans previously disenfranchised and, in a measurable way, paved the way for Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008.

In October 1997, he was appointed as ”Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa“.

As a highly respected and trusted world leader, Reverend Jackson has acted many times as an international diplomat in sensitive situations: in 1984 Reverend Jackson secured the release of captured Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman from Syria, and the release of 48 Cuban and Cuban-American prisoners in Cuba. He negotiated to bring out citizens from the UK, France and other countries held as “human shields” by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990. In 1999, Reverend Jackson negotiated the release of U.S. soldiers held hostage in Kosovo. In August 2000, he helped negotiate the release of four journalists working on a documentary for Britain’s Channel 4 network held in Liberia.

Reverend Jackson has received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees, and frequently lectures at major colleges and universities.