The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson will lecture for the Student Forum of Chancellor Donald J. Reaves’ installation at Winston-Salem State on Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 p.m. in Kenneth R. Williams Auditorium.
Jackson is a civil and human rights leader, president and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and a two-time Democratic candidate for President of the United States.
The forum is part of the two-day schedule of activities surrounding the Chancellor’s installation. Jackson’s address is free and open to the public. The title of the address is “The Role and Relevance of Historically Black Colleges Yesterday and Today.”
HBCUs collectively enroll approximately 300,000 students. HBCUs award 28 percent of the bachelors degrees, 16 percent of professional degrees, 15 percent of masters’ degrees, and 9 percent of doctoral degrees earned by African-Americans. HBCUs remain the primary undergraduate home of most African-American Ph.D. recipients, Army officers, federal judges, and medical doctors.
Jackson is recognized as one of America’s foremost political figures. He has played a role in many movements for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice for more than 30 years.
Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, S.C. He graduated from North Carolina A&T and attended Chicago Theological Seminary until he joined the Civil Rights Movement in 1965.
Jackson started as a student leader in the sit-in movement and continued as a organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference assisting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also directed Operation Breadbasket and subsequently founded People United to Save Humanity (PUSH) in Chicago in 1971.
Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a national social justice organization devoted to political empowerment, education and changing public policy in 1984. The two entities merged into the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in September 1996.
His 1984 presidential campaign won him 3.5 million votes and registered more than 1 million new voters and helped the Democratic Party regain control of the Senate in 1986. Jackson’s 1988 presidential candidacy won 7 million votes and registered 2 million new voters.
He has visited thousands of high schools, colleges, universities, and correctional facilities encouraging excellence, inspiring hope and challenging young people to reward themselves with academic excellence and to stay drug-free.