Rev. Jesse Jackson’s connections to Minnesota go back decades
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Over his long career, civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson made many visits to Minnesota to champion causes and work to empower people who were underrepresented.
Jackson died early Tuesday at the age of 84.
Back in 1985, Jackson flew to the state to advocate for farmers facing foreclosure. He attended a rally in Glenwood, saying then that America had the means to help struggling farm families.
“We did it for Europe with the Marshall Plan. We did it for Israel — we made flowers bloom in the desert. We did it for Chrysler, we did it for Continental Bank — we can do it for farmers. It’s just a matter of having the collective will to do so,” Jackson said at the time.
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In 1996, about a month before that year’s presidential election — Jackson visited with high school students in north Minneapolis. After talking for about 20 minutes, he asked any students 18 or older to raise their hands if they were registered to vote. Any who weren’t, were called down to the front of the room to sign up.
Speaking with MPR News afterward, Jackson said seeing young people registering to vote was “a joy beyond explanation.”
“Many people feel that their vote does not count, because often they feel they don’t count and that somehow it will be all right,” Jackson said. “Many people who need Medicare, or who need a livable wage, or who need first-class schools as opposed to first-class jails and second-class schools — whose needs are very real and will be determined by public policy — are not registered to vote. And some of them think that these basic necessities will be taken care of — but they will not be, unless we vote for them, unless we fight for them.”
Jackson continued to visit Minnesota in more-recent years — addressing protesters outside the Governor's Residence following the police shooting of Philando Castile in 2016, and traveling to Minneapolis to meet with residents and elected officials following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. He returned the following year to meet with protesters following the police shooting of Daunte Wright, and to visit George Floyd Square.
Decades before, during that visit on behalf of farmers in western Minnesota in 1985, Jackson highlighted a recurring theme in his life’s work, and in his many visits to the state: The power of bringing people together, of uniting causes, to affect change.
“If the students just go to Washington one day protesting, and the mayors another day, and the farmers another day — they are dismissed as isolated parades. But if, in fact, we find common ground and begin to move together, we can change the alternatives under which all decisions are made,” he said.
