Jonathan L. Jackson is the scion of a legendary Chicago civil rights and political family.
The freshman Democrat’s father is Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, former shadow senator and two-time presidential candidate. His mother is Jacqueline Jackson, a civil rights leader in her own right. And his brother, Jesse Jackson Jr., was a longtime Democratic member of the House, whose tenure ended in a conviction and prison time for campaign finance violations.
Jackson worked for stints with his father’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, an international human and civil rights organization, and has been active locally in educational and criminal justice initiatives. But until 2022, he’d otherwise avoided politics, working instead as an investment banker, a business owner and an educator.
