Jesse Jackson – a super-charged orator

Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist who became the US’s first black presidential candidate has died.

He played a leading role in virtually every campaign for civil rights, sexual and racial equality, and economic and social justice. One of America’s best known public figures, he was called the “conscience of the nation” and “the great unifier”.

He had an astounding talent for publicity and words came easily to him. ‘As an orator he had the power to raise political discourse to lyric narrative and inspire his audiences to tears, cheers and chants. In the style of a Baptist revivalist preacher he would punctuate his text with mantras and rhymes that he would make his audience incant – his favourite being “respect me, protect me, never neglect me. I am somebody.”

 Critics often accused him of being little more than a cheerleader of causes, his oratory mere “jive talk”, and of being obsessed with his own self-aggrandisement. But he became a powerful figurehead for the poor and oppressed far beyond the shores of America – in South Africa and Palestine

  He was born October 8 1941 at 2.15pm in Greenville, South Carolina, in a South of poverty, segregation and lynching. His mother was an unmarried black teenager; his father, a married cotton worker, who lived next door. Jesse was later adopted by his stepfather.

  He won a football scholarship to the University of Illinois but discovered that blacks were only allowed on to the pitch as linesmen. At 22 he achieved his first civil rights success when he organised picket lines and sit-ins at local restaurants, hotels and theatres that banned blacks, persuading many of them to lift the colour bar and went on to work with Martin Luther King. He impressed his colleagues in the movement with his energy as much as he irritated them with his personal publicity seeking.

  He had a Libra Sun in the 9^th house of faith and spreading-the-word in an argumentative and go-ahead opposition to Mars in Aries in his 3^rd house of communication. He had an intense 7^th house Pluto in a can-be-dogmatic square to Mercury in Scorpio. Designed as a talker and even more so a promoter of his views, he would make an impact. His persuasive and charming Venus in Scorpio in his 10^th was opposition a determined and reforming Moon Saturn Uranus in Taurus which in turn was in an inventive trine to an influential 8^th house Neptune, prompting him to work for a better society (Saturn Neptune). His confident Jupiter in chatty Gemini in his performing 5^th house meant he was good at garnering an appreciative audience.

 He was custom-built as a mover and shaker for the causes he espoused and very effective.

Interesting that his Libra Sun was conjunct the USA country Saturn in Libra, whose essential meaning is of fairness, though it often fell short.