Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., President and Founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and former assistant to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of America's foremost civil rights and political figures. Over the past forty years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality and economic and social justice.

Long before national healthcare, a war on drugs, direct peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, ending apartheid in South Africa and advancing democracy in Haiti became accepted public policy positions, Reverend Jesse Jackson advocated them and by doing so helped to bring the American public to a new level of consciousness.

Reverend Jackson's two presidential campaigns broke new ground in US politics. His 1984 campaign registered over one million new voters, won 3.5 million votes and helped the Democratic Party regain control of the Senate in 1986. His 1988 campaign registered over two million new voters, won seven million votes and helped boost hundreds of state and local elected officials into office. In 1990 Reverend Jackson was elected to the post of US Senator for Washington, D.C.

As a highly respected and trusted world leader, Reverend Jackson has acted many times as an international diplomat in sensitive situations. For example, in 1984 Reverend Jackson secured the release of captured Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman from Syria and the release of 48 Cuban and Cuban-American prisoners in Cuba. He was the first American to bring hostages out of Kuwait and Iraq in 1990. In 1999 he negotiated the release of US soldiers held hostage in Kosovo.

His international efforts continued into the 2000s. In February 2003 Reverend Jackson spoke in front of an estimated one million people in London's Hyde Park at the culmination of the anti-war demonstration against the imminent invasion of Iraq by the US and the United Kingdom. In November 2004 he visited senior politicians and community activists in Northern Ireland in an effort to rebuild the peace process and restore the governmental institutions of the Belfast Agreement.

A hallmark of Reverend Jackson's work has been his commitment to youth. He has visited thousands of high schools, colleges, universities and correctional facilities encouraging excellence, inspiring hope and challenging young people to study diligently and stay drug-free.

Reverend Jackson has also been a consistent and vigorous supporter of the labour movement in the US and around the world. He is known as someone who has walked more picket lines and spoken at more labour rallies than any other national leader. He has worked with unions to organise workers, to protect workers' rights and to mediate labour disputes. In 1996 he travelled to Asia to investigate treatment of workers in the Japanese automobile industry and in athletic apparel factories in Indonesia.

For his work in human and civil rights and for non-violent social change Reverend Jackson has received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees. He frequently lectures at major universities including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and Stanford. On 9th Angust, 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour. In October 1997 he was appointed as “Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa”.

Reverend Jackson has been on the Gallup List of the Ten Most Respected Americans for more than a dozen years. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the International Peace Foundation.