CHICAGO EMBRACED JACKSON — AND HE DID IN RETURN
SUN-TIMES LIBRARY The Rev. Jesse Jackson addresses the crowd gathered in the auditorium of Operation PUSH headquarters on July 25, 1973. Family and friends say the young leader and future civil rights icon was nurtured by the community he found upon moving here 19 feb 2026 - Chicago Sun-Times ESTHER YOON-JI KANG AND NICOLE JEANINE JOHNSON In 1964, Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson drove into Chicago from North Carolina, where they had met, married and had their first child. In the car, with 1-year-old Santita in tow, a pregnant Jacqueline looked around at the tall buildings Downtown and asked her husband a question. “Jesse, do you think anyone will get to know us here?” The newly minted North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College grad was optimistic and reassuring. He turned to his college sweetheart and said: “Baby, I think we’re going to be OK. What we’re going to do is get to work, and we’re going to be just fine.” In the decades that followed, the Rev. Jesse Ja...