For over forty years, Jesse Jackson has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement in the United States for peace, civil rights, gender equality and economic and social justice.

‘I may be poor, but I am somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am somebody! I may be in jail, but I am somebody! I may be uneducated, but I am somebody! I am black! Beautiful! Proud! I must be respected! I must be protected! I am somebody!’ —Jesse Jackson leading an audience chant, 1969

There are few figures and leaders of recent American history of greater consequence than Reverend Jesse Jackson, and none more relevant for America’s current political climate.

In the 1960s, he served as a close aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, meeting him on the notorious march to legitimate the American democratic system in Selma. He was there on the day of King’s assassination, and continued his political legacy, inspiring a generation of black and Latinx politicians and activists.

Now he joins How To Academy for a livestream in conversation event with his biographer, David Masciotra. From his work to end Jim Crow with Martin Luther King, to his victories for economic integration in a discriminatory economy in the 1970s, to his presidential campaigns – without which hundreds of black officials, including Barack Obama – would not have won election – David and Jesse will explore his lifelong struggle to humanise and moderate the too-often exploitative system of American life.

The cry for justice in America is always a whisper in a storm, but, as in the case of Jesse Jackson, it can on some occasions find amplification.