STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We’re following the news of the death of Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson of Chicago. A family statement says he died at age 84, surrounded by family, some years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. NPR’s Cheryl Corley covered him and is on the line. Cheryl, good morning.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Remarkable life – stretches across a good part of the 20th century and a bit of the 21st. Can you work us through some of the details?
CORLEY: Yeah. First, I’m going to say that although he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he was later – it was confirmed that he had this rare brain disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy…
INSKEEP: Got it.
CORLEY: …Which affects the ability to move and to speak. But even so, Jesse Jackson really just continued throughout his life to protest against racial injustice, even appearing at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that was held a couple of years ago. And so, you know, just continued his activism. You know, he began that activism early on in his life when he was actually in college. Went to college at North Carolina A&T and became a leader in the lunch counter sit-ins that were protesting whites-only policies at restaurants at the time. And he’d go on to join Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC…
INSKEEP: And was present for the…
CORLEY: …In 1968.
INSKEEP: He was present for the assassination of Martin Luther King.
CORLEY: The Assassination. Yeah. Yeah, he was present for that, and he actually split with SCLC after King’s death and founded the organization that he’s known for, Operation PUSH, which later merged with his National Rainbow Coalition – became Rainbow/PUSH. And so he really crisscrossed the country, pushing for a greater share of political and economic power for African Americans and the poor. And he also did a lot of work around the globe, spotlighting a kind of plethora of domestic and international problems. Spoke out against…
INSKEEP: What was it…
CORLEY: Go ahead, Steve.
INSKEEP: Thank you. Thank you. What was it like when he ran for president in 1984 and ’88?
CORLEY: You know, I wasn’t there for ’84, but that was such a map for what was to come later. In 1988, when he ran for president, you know, there were all these people pushing, saying, run, Jesse run, and all of that. You know, it began with voter registration drives, which were on the PUSH agenda. And in 1983, he had launched this national voter registration drive, and with those crowds chanting run, Jesse, run, urging him to run for president. And that November, he actually told supporters that he would seek the Democratic nomination.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JESSE JACKSON: Our time has come. All the way from the statehouse to the courthouse to the White House, our time has come. God bless you.
INSKEEP: Give us a couple of thoughts of what it was like to cover him in 1988, Cheryl.
CORLEY: Oh, man, it was (laughter) – it was amazing. I mean, he was so charismatic and he drew so many people to him. You know, he won more than 7 million votes during that run and became the first African American candidate to win major promise – primaries. And his convention speech just electrified Democrats who were waving their red-white flags and their red-white Jesse signs as well.
INSKEEP: Actually, let’s listen to that clip as we go out. More Jesse Jackson here.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.
INSKEEP: Jesse Jackson. Cheryl Corley, thank you so much.
CORLEY: You’re welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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