
Yusef Jackson on the Future of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Clip: 4/14/2026 | 8m 25sVideo has Closed Captions
A new chapter begins for the organization following the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Following the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Yusef Jackson is inheriting an organization with decades of history. He is charged with taking it into the future.
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Yusef Jackson on the Future of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Clip: 4/14/2026 | 8m 25sVideo has Closed Captions
Following the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Yusef Jackson is inheriting an organization with decades of history. He is charged with taking it into the future.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship>> A new chapter begins for the Rainbow Push Coalition following the death of civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Senior.
>> The organization Jackson made into a national force for economic and racial justice now has new leadership.
The reverend's youngest son, Yusuf, who was unanimously chosen by the Rainbow push port.
He's inheriting an organization with decades of history and is charged with taking it into the future.
Joining us now is use of Jackson de newly appointed president and CEO of the Rainbow Push Coalition.
Welcome Chicago.
Good evening.
Thank having me or to be here.
What does it mean to you to be stepping in to your father shoes in this way?
You know, first, let me say I want to thank Chicago.
I want to thank United States and want to thank the world.
There were so many outpourings of a celebration of commemoration of >> Instagram videos and memes and funny things in beautiful stories for my father.
And we just want to thank the whole world for what they offer to So positive.
They kept us strong and really hard time.
want to thank the listeners and your viewers for that.
That means a whole lot.
I'm honored that the board of directors had faith in me.
I think my mother, I think my father, Reverend Jesse Jackson, senior for the faith.
You had to entrust me with this legacy of service taken into the future.
>> Your father also he chose you to write that the board made it official, of course, but he also said that he wanted to take, you know, we've been working on a 4 year.
We've never found the right moment to do it until just recently, actually, it was really important to me.
My father always said he never wanted to retire.
He's not the retiring kind of guy.
He just I'm the kind of work he does it with in his spirit, the spirit service within his body.
And so he wanted to die with his shoes on.
And that's how we did it.
Well, worn shoes.
He had holes in the end, a dirty uniform on.
And that's how he would have it.
So it was important for me that he pass with the titles that Yes.
And in covering his legacy, we also spoke to a revenue at Wilson.
We heard about the struggle for the days when when we're getting out to walk and to March, you know, what he would say was that he'd say that if if you're if you're closer to neat, 2 reached out grab somebody from them but and pick them up, you're in the wrong profession.
That's really, really important him.
So he was always dressed for the occasion and never too high to reach over to people reached out for people to help them up and give them hope.
You know, if I can offer this, my father, the mission, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition is again, protect and defend civil rights by leveling the economic playing field and making a better world for everybody.
My father saw it differently and wanted to see it differently.
More expansively probably than we see that mission, although that's a very important mission remains our mission to gain protect and defend civil rights.
But he was coming out of Jim Crow.
He was coming out of separate but equal.
And so he saw the law changed the 64 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, public accommodations, bill, but into the cultures had to change so he wouldn't touch almost every part of American culture.
He could public accommodations, the library's, the water fountains, the staffing he had to convince African-Americans that they are somebody that they had dignity to believe in yourself in that you deserve these new rights.
If you remember, there was a time to question the size of our brains.
Can African-American person does he have the capacity play quarterback get the capacity to manage a game pitching for the mount, capacity to coach a football team.
And so he had to change from music to automobile industries to manufacturing all the indices he went to touch.
And to that point, you know, how do you feel the role of the organization is different today than when he founded, as you said it time when he was coming out of Jim Crow.
So we have to be different for us.
We've got to continue to think about it because reaching younger people suffer you see.
But I do know this.
He had a tremendous voice, his voice command at media attention.
He had a face more popular than the pope's.
So we don't have that.
He and he earned that right over 60 years of work and for the work they did.
What we've got we've got to teach civics and a block by block person by person, Group by group level state-by-state, Tuba City.
What does that mean?
Their civil rights advocates?
64 65.
A lot of them are passing on as my father has.
But the beneficiary of civil rights is 80% of the country.
Every woman in sports, every woman in jobs who have a chance to get dollar for dollar compared to a male.
Every African-American, every non western European Democrat since 1965.
Every immigrant.
Since 1965, you are a beneficiary of the civil rights advocacy groups.
You wouldn't be here and have the opportunity have, but for civil rights.
And so it's up to you.
Advocates and beneficiaries who've taken the big games that we've offered you from advocacy and a teacher, the generations without Civil Rights Act without 1964.
95.
This would not be the America that we see today.
And then how do you make that legacy resonate with younger generations?
Because all of that work that has already been done, all of the rights that people already have.
Now, how do you convince them that the work still remains not?
You know, it's don't know what restaurants are going down.
Are sell?
Tell you 2 things.
One.
>> Everyone born after 1965.
United States America was born on second base.
But they woke up and thought they had a double.
Because they didn't have to struggle what my parents knew.
What our parents know was that to get these rights, someone have to die.
We give up a lot of blood.
There's a lot of marching.
A lot of protesting.
A lot of coalition building, but post 1965.
We don't really understand that we've had 61 years of progress without really understanding the nature of the struggle.
We have got to teach people got to teach them one by one.
Every female athlete, every NBA player, all of us must together teach civil rights.
other thing is we we went to Minneapolis and we brought together groups of African Americans and Haitians, tamales and Jewish groups and peace groups and learned first hand what ICE is doing.
It occurred to us that the fight in Minneapolis is about citizenship and the right to vote.
The former attorney general said if you give a voter registration lists, we'll send home citizenship and the right to vote to same fight.
John Lewis, Jesse Jackson and young Doctor King.
We're having in March 1965, at Selma citizenship and the right to vote.
And so they bridge between Minneapolis and is one of continuous legacy.
But the puck Minneapolis didn't really see the relationship to Selma citizenship and the right to vote.
So we took 5 busloads of people from Minneapolis to Selma and from Washington, D.C., and Chicago to march across the bridge to baptize themselves.
Selma, the Edmund Pettus Bridge is is our Jordan River.
And so I think that everyone a cook county today looking to register to vote on on felonious inmate.
Everyone who was trying to push legislation to have 18 year-old have a voter registration card.
One hand and they at a high school diploma.
Other hand, you all voting rights advocates and you in the lineage of the struggle for voting rights advocacy.
So you do more civil rights.
What do you think you are voter registration, voting rights have always been a central push for rainbow push.
What are the other pillars that you're focusing We have trade deficit the country.
Black and brown people.
If if we close gap for the Civil Rights Act alone, the Voting Rights Act alone.
But combinations, Bill education, housing life expectancy affordable health care, then black and brown people would represent over the next 5 years.
5 trillion dollars of additional GDP.
5 trillion dollars.
It's worth investing.
An African-American and brown people in the country right now because it's a safe bet right here, right next to you.
And over the last 20 after the last 20 years, we've lost 30 billion dollars based on the disinvestment and African-American and brown communities.
Ok, couple seconds left.
Lastly, has your family been?
Thank you for asking.
It's every day.
You know, every day we have 4 seasons and our lives it's.
It's hard to talk about.
Still, I want to give you a good answer for that.
But I'm not sure I can answer it appropriately and television.
Could this still very painful for us?
All right.
I understand that.
I won't hold you to it again.
Our condolences use of tax and brand new president CEO Rainbow Push.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
going to be here, of course.
>> And we're back right after this.
>> Reflecting the people and
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