Jesse Louis Jackson, Jr. (born March 11, 1965) is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois's 2nd congressional district , which includes the part of the Southland southeast suburbs of Chicago and part of the Chicago South Side .[2] The son of activist and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson , he has served the 2nd district since winning a special election on December 12, 1995 to fill the seat vacated by Mel Reynolds . His wife, Sandi Jackson , serves on the Chicago City Council . He served as a national co-chairman of the Barack Obama presidential campaign .[3] On September 21, 2010, Jackson said of his affair with blonde Peruvian Giovana Huidobro: "is a private and p ersonal matter between me and my wife " [4] (Associated Press). The Peruvian hostess was flown to Chicago twice by political fundraiser Raghuveer Nayak one month before the 2008 November election in a bid to see if Jackson would pony up $6 million in exchange for an Illinois senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama . Prior to elective politics Jackson was active in international civil rights activism. He participated in his father's presidential campaigns and then in the office of his Rainbow Coalition . During his time in public office he has co-authored three books, two of them with his father. Jackson has a consistent liberal record on both social and fiscal issues.[5] His most important political issue has been the pursuit of the proposed Chicago south suburban airport to serve as a third major airport for the Chicago metropolitan area . He has been a very active Democratic spokesperson for other Democratic candidates and a popular interviewee and broadcast media guest. In his majority black district, he has generated broad-based support, which has repeatedly earned him re-election by wide 5-to-1 and 10-to-1 margins.[6] Prior to the selection of Roland Burris , Jackson had been mentioned as a possible appointee by Governor Rod Blagojevich for an interim United States Senator to replace Obama until the November 2010 election.[7] Numerous press publications noted his supposed involvement in the Rod Blagojevich corruption investigation .[8] [9] [10]
Early life
| Left: United States President George W. Bush signing bill for Rosa Parks statue at Statuary Hall , (standing left to right) Richard Lugar , Alphonso Jackson , Laura Bush , Condoleezza Rice , Jackson, John Kerry , Thad Cochran ; Right: Jackson, his children (Jesse III and Jessica), Bush, Rice (both images 2005-12-01) | ||
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina four days after the Selma to Montgomery marches (known as Bloody Sunday). Raised in the Jackson Park Highlands District of the South Shore community area on the South Side of Chicago , he is one of five children of Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson: Santita is the oldest; Jesse Jr. is two years younger; Jonathan follows him by one year; Yusef and Jacqueline are five and ten years younger than Jonathan. He attended nursery school at the University of Chicago and, like all of his siblings, attended the John J. Pershing Public Elementary School. One of the earliest memories of Jesse, Jr. for Chicagoans was a speech he gave at age five from a milk crate at the Operation PUSH headquarters. He says that he was reared more by his mother, Jacqueline, although his father gave him lots of advice through the years. His father sought media attention to shed light on important issues according to some accounts and as a result of his father's travels, his time with his father often occurred in the time between meetings.
He and his brother Jonathan were sent to Le Mans Military Academy in Watertown, Wisconsin after Jackson was diagnosed hyperactive. He was often paddled for disciplinary reasons during his time as a cadet. Jacqueline wanted both boys to go to St. Albans in Washington D.C. to spend more time with their father who was very active in that city. Although Jonathan decided to attend Whitney Young High School , a magnet school in Chicago, Jackson moved to Washington. Biographical content in A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights explains that the four-year foreign language requirement at St. Albans necessitated Jackson repeating the ninth grade and that he was suspended from school twice. According to younger brother Yusef, Jesse was responsible for changing several rules at the St. Albans dorms. He was an all-state running back on his football team in high school and his play got him into the February 13, 1984 issue of Sports Illustrated as part of their Faces In The Crowd section, which noted him for his 15 touchdowns , 889 rushing yards, and 7.2 yards per carry in six games. This issue is notable as the 1984 Swimsuit Issue . Then Jackson followed in his father's footsteps by attending North Carolina A&T where his father had been quarterback , class president and the successful suitor of Jacqueline. He took classes every summer, and he earned his Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1987. He received his college diploma along with his brother Jonathan in 1988 in a year where his father as a presidential candidate was a speaker. He decided to follow his father's advice and experience a seminary education at the Hyde Park based Chicago Theological Seminary, where he earned his master's degree a year early but opted not to become ordained . In 1989, he earned his M.A. from the Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago. Jackson proceeded to law school at the University of Illinois and convinced his future wife to transfer there from the Georgetown University Law Center . He then earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1993. Jackson never sat for the bar exam despite finishing his coursework a semester early.
Early political years
A teenage Jackson and his brother Jonathan assisted in their father's international civil rights activities. During the 1984 Democratic primaries , the three Jackson brothers sometimes appeared at events together in support of their father's presidential campaign. While in college, Jackson held a voter registration drive that registered 3,500 voters on a campus with 4,500 students. During the 1986 United States House of Representatives elections he got involved in politics outside his own family when he supported the return to office of Robin Britt , but first-term Congressman Howard Coble won re-election by less than 100 votes. Following these elective experiences, his first job after graduation was as an executive director for the Rainbow Coalition.
Jackson, Jr. was again involved in his father's campaigning during the 1988 Democratic Primaries . In 1988, in the dealings between Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention , Jackson, Jr. was named an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) by a nomination from Democratic Party Chairman Paul Kirk . At the convention, the elder Jackson had himself introduced at the podium by all five of his children, including Jr. Jackson, Jr. was the last of the five children and introduced his father with the words "a man who fights against the odds, who lives against the odds, our dad, Jesse Jackson." During the speech, Jackson, Jr. saved his father from an allergic reaction or asthma attack by taking action to block air conditioning vents that were blowing on him during his speech. At the time, in Time magazine, Margaret Carlson depicted the younger Jackson as a well-spoken and compelling personality who would likely ca
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