Civil rights leader, two-time Democratic Presidential Candidate and former U.S. Shadow Senator for the District of Columbia, Rev. Jesse Jackson passed away on February 17, 2026.
Jackson visited Kent State several times. He attended the first May 4 Commemoration in 1971 and returned for the Commemoration in 1974.
In Feb.1987, he spoke at the Memorial Gymnasium as part of the university’s observation of Black History Month. His visit was sponsored by Kent State's Black United Students, the All-Campus Programming Board, Kent Interhall Council and the May 4 Task Force. Jackson was also a long time associate of Ron Daniels, Ph.D. who was then an associate professor in Kent State's Department of Pan-African Studies (now the Department of Africana Studies).
In the late 1990s Jackson was invited to Kent State University at Stark as part of their Featured Speaker Series. Campus administrators were uncertain that he would be able to appear on the scheduled date as he had just been released from jail for a protest-related arrest in Chicago the night before.
He arrived on time and on February 11, 1997, Jackson delivered an address on racial unity and the integration of Black history to a larger-than-expected group over 600 members of the Kent State community and representatives of the media in the Stark Campus’s field house.
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