A cleric and campaigner for minority rights. He contested his party's 1984 and 1988 presidential nominations in an effort to increase voter registration and to put black issues on the national agenda. He is an eloquent public speaker. Born in North Carolina and educated in Chicago, Jackson emerged as a powerful Baptist preacher and black activist politician, working first with the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, then on building the political machine that gave Chicago a black mayor 1983. Jackson sought to construct what he called a rainbow coalition of ethnic minority and socially deprived groups. He took the lead in successfully campaigning for US disinvestment in South Africa 1986.
