Rainbow/PUSH is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization formed as a merger of two nonprofit organizations founded by Jesse Jackson; Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition. The organizations pursue social justice, civil rights, and political activism.
Operation PUSH raised public awareness to initiate corporate action and government sponsorship. The National Rainbow Coalition became a prominent political organization that raised public awareness of numerous political issues and consolidated a large voting bloc. The merged entity has undertaken numerous social initiatives.
Operation PUSH, an acronym for People United to Save (later Serve) Humanity, was an organization that advocated black self-help and achieved a broad audience for its liberal stances on social justice and civil rights.[2]
Operation PUSH's origins can be traced to a factional split in Operation Breadbasket, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[3] In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr., the head of the SCLC, appointed Jackson to head the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, which became a coalition of black ministers and entrepreneurs.[4]
After 1968, Jackson increasingly clashed with King's successor at SCLC, Ralph Abernathy. The break became complete in December 1971 when Abernathy suspended Jackson for "administrative improprieties and repeated acts of violation of organizational policy." Jackson resigned from Operation Breadbasket, called together his allies, and formed Operation PUSH.
From its inception, Jackson called its membership a "Rainbow Coalition."[4] This concept and phrase was originally created by the 1968 Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Hampton used it to describe the multiethnic revolutionary federation he founded. Jackson was not part of Hampton's Rainbow Coalition, and had a difficult relationship with the Panthers. Some former members of Hampton's coalition resent Jackson for using the name, partly because Jackson's politics are reformist, and partly because Jackson copyrighted the name, preventing others from using it.[5]
Jesse Jackson speaks at 1973 PUSH National Convention
The organizational meeting of PUSH was in the Chicago home of T.R.M. Howard, a prominent black doctor and community leader on the South Side. Before he moved to Chicago in 1956, Howard developed a national reputation as a Mississippi civil rights leader, surgeon, and entrepreneur. He served on PUSH's board of directors and chaired the finance committee.[6]
Through PUSH Jackson was able to continue pursuing the same economic objectives that Operation Breadbasket had. In addition, his organization expanded into social and political development for blacks in Chicago and nationwide. The 1970s saw various tactics to pursue the organization's objectives including direct action campaigns, weekly radio broadcasts,[7] and awards, through which Jackson protected black homeowners, workers, and businesses, and honored prominent blacks in the US and abroad.
Jackson also started a campaign against legalizing abortion after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. PUSH was concerned with minority youth reading,[8] and championed education through PUSH-Excel, a spin-off program that emphasized keeping inner-city youths in school while assisting them with job placement.[9] The program, which persuaded inner-city youth to pledge in writing to study two hours per night and involved parental monitoring,[10] impressed Jimmy Carter, whose administration became a large sponsor after Secretary of Health, Education, and WelfareJoseph Califano and Secretary of LaborRay Marshall courted Jackson.[11][12]
The organization was very successful at committing major corporations with large presences in the black community to adopt affirmative action programs in which they hired more black executives and supervisors and to buy from black suppliers, wholesalers, and distributors.[11] The organization employed prayer vigils to call attention to issues.[13] It opposed Ronald Reagan's workfare initiative requiring that welfare recipients work for part of their benefits.[14]
The organization staged several boycotts, including early 1980s boycotts of Anheuser Busch and Coca-Cola as well as a 1986 boycott of CBS television affiliates.[15][16] The boycotts became so well known that at one point David Duke supporters referred to a boycott of Nike, Inc. as oppression of whites by blacks.[17] Nike spokespersonMichael Jordan disavowed the boycott.[18] The boycotts of Budweiser and Coke as well as one against Kentucky Fried Chicken were touted for having won minority job concessions from white businesses.[19]
The National Rainbow Coalition (Rainbow Coalition for short) was a political organization that grew out of Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign. During the campaign, Jackson began speaking about a "Rainbow Coalition", an idea created by Fred Hampton, regarding the disadvantaged and welcomed voters from a broad spectrum of races and creeds.[11] The goals of the campaign were to demand social programs, voting rights, and affirmative action for all groups that had been neglected by Reaganomics.[9]
Jackson's campaign blamed President Ronald Reagan's policies for reduction of government domestic spending, causing new unemployment and encouraging economic investment outside of the inner cities, while they discouraged the rebuilding of urban industry. The industrial layoffs caused by these policies hit the Black and other minority populations particularly hard.[11]
After his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination in 1984, Jackson attempted to build a broad base of support among groups that "were hurt by Reagan administration policies" - racial minorities, the poor, small farmers, working mothers, the unemployed, some labor union members, gays, and lesbians.[11]
1990s onwards
Jackson moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C. to serve as shadow senator from 1991 to 1996. When he returned to Chicago in 1996 he merged his organizations.[22] The merged entity advocates for African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, other minorities, and women. Its main economic goal is to have more minorities on the payrolls, in the boardrooms, and on the supplier lists of major corporations. The industries it most aggressively pursues are the financial sector on Wall Street, the telecommunications field and high-tech firms in Silicon Valley.[21]
The Wall Street activities are organized under sub-organization "The Wall Street Project".[9] The organization has been active in pursuit of increase minority representation in other industries, most notably the broadcast media, the entertainment industry, and the automobile industry. It has also sought increased representation by minority administrators in college and professional sports under the leadership of Jesse Jackson, Jr.[23] For Hispanic issues the merged entity works closely with the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Council of La Raza.[21]
In 1998 the organization attacked Freddie Mac for its lending and employment practices, which led to its pledge to earmark $1 billion in mortgage loans specifically for minorities, to donate more than $1 million directly to Rainbow/PUSH and to become a sponsor of Jackson's annual Wall Street Project. In 2000, the organization investigated the case of Raynard Johnson, who was found hanged by a belt from a tree in front of his home in Kokomo, Mississippi.[9] Jackson labelled it a "lynching", although two autopsies both concluded that the death was a suicide.[24]
In the early 2000s (decade), Rainbow/PUSH worked with NASCAR to increase the number of minorities involved in auto racing, through direct financial support and projects to find talented African-American racing drivers.[25] This initiative was ended in 2003, after the racing sanctioning body was criticized by conservative groups for the partnership.[26] Among the smaller campaigns it has undertaken are the HIV/AIDS Initiative for funding for AIDS programs; the National Field Department support of "constructive agitation to bring about societal change"; and the Prison Outpost project, whose ultimate goal is "to eliminate the need for prisons."
Through his organization and its predecessors Jackson has advocated universal health care, a war on drugs, direct peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, ending apartheid in South Africa and advancing democracy in Haiti.[27] The following is the organization's list of major issues:
1% Student Loans
Jobs and Economic Empowerment
Employee Rights and Livable Wages
Educational Access
Fair and Decent Housing
Voter Registration and Civic Education
Election Law Reform
Fairness in the Media, Sports, and Criminal Justice System
In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, Rev. Jesse Jackson promised to raise money and collect donations for those affected. The organization set up drop-off locations in Chicago to assist with relief efforts.[29]
On July 16, 2023, Jackson, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2017 and was now using a wheelchair, stepped down as head of Rainbow/PUSH after leading the organization for more than five decades. He was succeeded by Dallas minister Frederick Douglass Haynes III.[30] In April 2024, Haynes resigned from Rainbow/PUSH after leading the organization for less than a year.[31][32][33]
In 2006, Jesse Jackson promised the Rainbow/Push Coalition would pay Crystal Mangum's college tuition. Mangum made false rape allegations against members of Duke University's men's lacrosse team who had hired her as a stripper. The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence. Jackson said that whatever the outcome of the trial, the tuition offer would still be good.[34]
↑ David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 209–10.
Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. was an American activist. He came to prominence in his late teens and very early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter. As a progressive African American, he founded the anti-racist, anti-classist Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots, and the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change. A Marxist–Leninist, Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all."
Jesse Louis Jackson Jr. is an American politician. He served as the U.S. representative from Illinois's 2nd congressional district from 1995 until his resignation in 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the son of activist and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson and, prior to his career in elected office, worked for his father in both the elder Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign and his social justice, civil rights and political activism organization, Operation PUSH. Jackson's then-wife, Sandi Jackson, served on the Chicago City Council. He served as a national co-chairman of the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign. Jackson established a consistent liberal record on both social and fiscal issues, and he has co-authored books on civil rights and personal finance.
Rainbow Coalition may refer different or related political concepts or movements in various parts of the world. In countries with parliamentary systems, it can refer to any coalition government composed of a coalition of several ideologically unrelated political parties united by opposition to one or more dominant parties. In the US, the "rainbow" concept has mainly referred to a diversity ethnicities and other demographic categories within a political organization or movement.
Benjamin Lawson Hooks was an American civil rights leader and government official. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992.
William Levi Dawson was an American politician and lawyer who represented a Chicago, Illinois district for more than 27 years in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1943 to his death in office in 1970. In 1949, he became the first African American to chair a congressional committee.
The Patriot Party was a socialist organization of the early 1970s in the United States that organized poor, rural whites in the Appalachian South and Pacific Northwest. The party was formed after a split with the Young Patriots Organization. The YPO's membership was drawn from street gangs of Appalachian whites in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois; it became politicized after working with the Young Lords, an ethnic Puerto Rican gang, and the African-American Black Panther Party.
Operation Breadbasket was an organization dedicated to improving the economic conditions of black communities across the United States. Operation Breadbasket was launched on February 11, 1966, under the leadership of Jesse Jackson. Its primary objective was to promote the employment of African Americans by companies operating in black communities and support the growth of black-owned businesses. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the core principle of Breadbasket as the belief that African Americans should not support businesses that denied them job opportunities, career advancement, or basic courtesy. To achieve their goals, the activists of Operation Breadbasket adopted a strategy called "selective patronage." They focused their initial campaign on dairy companies and supermarket chains. They organized pickets and encouraged boycotts of stores that carried products from the targeted companies, aiming to pressure them into improving their employment practices and support for the black community.
Dennis Louis Serrette was an American activist for civil rights and labor rights. He also was the New Alliance Party candidate for United States President in the 1984 presidential election.
Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard was an American civil rights leader, fraternal organization leader, entrepreneur and surgeon. He was a mentor to activists such as Medgar Evers, Charles Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry, and Jesse Jackson, whose efforts gained local and national attention leading up to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership for African Americans. It pledged "to guide our people in their civic responsibilities regarding education, registration and voting, law enforcement, tax paying, the preservation of property, the value of saving and in all things which will make us stable, qualified conscientious citizens." Instead of starting from the "grass roots," however, the strategy was to "reach the masses through their chosen leaders" by harnessing the talents of blacks with a proven record in business, the professions, education, and the church.
David T. Beito is an American historian and professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama.
Archibald James Carey Jr. was an American lawyer, judge, politician, diplomat, and clergyman from the South Side of Chicago. He was elected as a city alderman and served for eight years under the patronage of the politician William L. Dawson. He served for several years as a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, when he became known as a civil rights activist. In 1957, he was appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower as chair of his committee on government employment policy, which worked to reduce racial discrimination.
Linda Royster Beito is professor of political science and criminal justice at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Jesse Louis Jackson is an American civil rights activist, politician, and ordained Baptist minister. Beginning as a young protégé of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, Jackson maintained his status as a prominent civil rights leader throughout his political and theological career for over seven decades. He served from 1991 to 1997 as a shadow delegate and senator for the District of Columbia. Jackson is the father of former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and current U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson.
The Rainbow Coalition was an anti-racist, working-class multicultural movement founded April 4, 1969, in Chicago, Illinois by Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party, along with William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots Organization and José Cha Cha Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords. It was the first of several 20th-century black-led organizations to use the "rainbow coalition" concept.
Jonathan Luther Jackson is an American politician, businessman, and activist serving as the U.S. representative for Illinois's 1st congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he was previously the national spokesman for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, a financial analyst, and a partner in the Chicago-based beer distributorship River North Sales and Service.
The Rainbow Agenda was a set of demands put forth by a coalition of student groups at Stanford University in the late 1980s. Inspired by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, Stanford's Rainbow Coalition demanded that the university "explore the critical concerns of minority students, faculty, and staff at Stanford University".
Willie Beatrice Barrow was an American civil rights activist and minister. Barrow was the co-founder of Operation PUSH, which was named Operation Breadbasket at the time of its creation alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson. In 1984, Barrow became the first woman executive director of a civil rights organization, serving as Push's CEO. Barrow was the godmother of President Barack Obama.
The Mississippi Enterprise was one of two African American newspapers in Jackson, Mississippi. Arrington High worked at the paper. Publication years include 1939–1980. The paper covered lynchings and murders of African Americans. It advocated for African Americans to support African-American businesses in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, a historically African-American community founded by freed slaves. The Library of Congress has an archive of the paper.
The Jackson Eagle Eye was a newspaper for African Americans published by Arrington High in Jackson, Mississippi.
References
David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito. T.R.M. Howard M.D.: A Mississippi Doctor in Chicago Civil Rights,A.M.E. Church Review (July–September 2001), 50–59.
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