MEC Mourns the Loss of Civil Rights Giant Rev. Jesse Jackson

Honoring a Voice for the Voiceless: A Message from President Dr. Patricia Ramsey on the Passing of Rev. Jesse Jackson

“Medgar Evers, Dr. King at 39 — we paid a price to get here.” — Rev. Jesse Jackson, on the night of Barack Obama’s election (CBS News)

The Medgar Evers College community mourns the passing of Reverend Jesse Jackson, and at the same time, we are grateful for his life. For more than seven decades, Reverend Jackson was a voice for the voiceless, the poor, and underserved communities.

Reverend Jackson’s connection to Medgar Evers College and its namesake, Medgar Wiley Evers, was something he took personally. Rev. Jackson, in his commencement speech to the Medgar Evers College graduating class of 1986, urged them toward lives of conscience when the pull toward despair was strong. In that speech, he stated, “It appears that the quest and the vision of equality have been lost,” (New York Times). Years later, standing in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night 2008 according to NPR, if he had one wish, it would be that Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. could have been present on election night for just a second in time. “That would have made my heart rejoice.”

The Medgar Evers College community sends its love to the Jackson family. We honor Reverend Jackson best by continuing the work.

Dr. Patricia Ramsey Medgar Evers College President