ABSTRACT
Jesse Louis Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1941. Jackson demonstrated his ability to appeal to a Rainbow Coalition of the American electorate gained three times as many white votes in the 1988 primaries than he had in 1984 and was the Democrats most progressive figure. To his detractors, Jackson projected confusing and contradictory images: a self-declared successor of Martin Luther King, Jr and a political opportunist, a color-blind populist and a confirmed anti-Semite, a preacher and a demagogue, an idealist and a hustler, a champion of the poor and an ardent black capitalist. In a 1996 speech to the Democratic National Convention, Jackson summarized his philosophy: If you go along and get along, you're a coward. Only by principled engagement can you be a force for change and hope. For all his insecurities, egotism, and ambition, Jackson has been deeply committed to this truth.
