CHICAGO — Jonathan Jackson, a son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, announced Friday his intention to seek the Democratic congressional nomination for the congressional seat being vacated when U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush retires at the end of his term.
“I have been fighting for working people my entire life and am dedicated to social and economic change,” said Jackson, a construction business owner in Bronzeville and a leader in his father’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. “As a businessman, college professor and activist, I have been on the forefront of the struggle for civil and human rights.”
Jackson, 56, enters a crowded field of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the redrawn 1st Congressional District, which stretches from the South Side and southwest suburbs down to nearly Kankakee, following Rush’s announcement earlier this month that he would retire after 30 years in Congress.
