[16] Under Jackson's direction, Operation Breadbasket held popular weekly workshops on Chicago's South Side featuring white and black political and economic leaders,[17] and religious services complete with a jazz band and choir.

[17] The break began when Abernathy questioned the handling of receipts from the Black Expo, and then suspended Jackson as leader of Operation Breadbasket for not obtaining permission to form non-profit corporations.

[16] At its inception, Jackson planned to orient Operation PUSH toward politics and to pressure politicians to work to improve economic opportunities for blacks and poor people of all races.

On February 15, 2003, Jackson spoke in front of over an estimated one million people in Hyde Park, London at the culmination of the anti-war demonstration against the imminent invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

[41] In November 2004 Jackson visited senior politicians and community activists in Northern Ireland in an effort to encourage better cross-community relations and rebuild the peace process and restore the governmental institutions of the Belfast Agreement.

[5] In May 1983, Jackson became the first African-American man since Reconstruction to address a joint session of the Alabama Legislature, where he said it was "about time we forgot about black and white and started talking about employed and unemployed".

[80] As February closed, Jackson announced his supporters would file a lawsuit against state election rules that he deemed racially motivated, specifically targeting "dual registration" and "second primaries".

[101] In an address to supporters at the Operation PUSH headquarters, Jackson said that fairness had not been achieved and that he was entitled to help choose both Mondale's running mate and his cabinet in the event he defeated Reagan in November.

[104][105] Jackson addressed the 1984 Democratic National Convention, which notably featured an apology alluding to his comments considered derogatory to Jews and "answered the longstanding question of his loyalty to the party in the general election".

[118] In June 1986, Jackson delivered a commencement speech at Medgar Evers College in which he bemoaned that many young people were "experiencing an ethical collapse, a spiritual withdrawal, and escaping this reality through drugs, alcohol, sex without love, making unwanted babies and turning on each other with violence".

[119] Later that month, after basketball player Len Bias died from cardiac arrest stemming from "cocaine intoxication", Jackson and Representative Charles Rangel called for Reagan to announce a nationwide war on drugs and seek increased funding of federal anti-drug education programs in public schools.

[133] Jackson's campaign platform included a call for a single-payer system of universal health care;[134] higher taxes on the wealthy and defense spending cuts intended to reduce federal budget deficits and increase education, housing, welfare, and childcare spending;[135][136] ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment;[137] reducing the supply and flow of drugs into communities;[138][139] the creation of a domestic version of the World Bank called the "American Investment Bank" that would have the authority to sell government bonds to rebuild American infrastructure;[140][141] suspending the development of new nuclear weapons in order to eventually ban them altogether;[142] and "a very different relationship with the Soviet Union" involving a constructive partnership.

Mayoral spokesman Curt Ritter responded, "Jesse Jackson, Dov Hikind and Alan Hevesi have joined the political pile-on team being captained by Al Sharpton in the name of Hillary Clinton.

[220] In March 1999, Jackson announced he would not be a candidate in the 2000 presidential election, stating his intent to continue championing the causes of education and health care reform and highlighting the "ongoing shame of our nation—the explosive growth of the prison-industrial complex.

"[221][222] In August, Jackson criticized Republican Governor of Texas and presidential candidate George W. Bush as showing no leadership after the murder of James Byrd Jr. by not pushing any hate-crime bills.

[230] On December 5, Jackson joined Florida Black Caucus members in filing a civil rights suit charging that minority voters in Duval County were discarded at higher rates than those of whites.

After Bush nominated Jerry Regier for the Department of Children and Families in 2002, Jackson joined Democrats who criticized a 1989 paper, which listed Reiger as co-chairman of the authoring group, that endorsed spanking to the point of bruises and welts and opposed married women having careers.

[239][240] Ultimately, Jackson rejected the offer, citing the lack of progress made by a Pakistani delegation, calling the Afghan response "a mistake on their part and strangely suspicious.

Jackson also said the wartime credentials of John Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, would make him a formidable opponent for Bush and urged those feeling powerless to get involved.

[256] On July 6, 2008, during an interview with Fox News, a microphone picked up Jackson whispering to fellow guest Reed Tuckson:[257] "See, Barack's been, ahh, talking down to black people on this faith-based...

"[264] In 2011, Wayne Barrett wrote that Obama's embrace of Sharpton had "as much to do with the president's antipathy for three other black leaders—Jesse Jackson, Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley—as it does with any genuine White House enthusiasm for the controversial New York preacher.

"[276] In an MSNBC interview, Jackson likened the shooting to a state execution and requested that the White House create a policy to address ills in black urban communities.

[281] In June, after Dylann Roof killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church,[282][283] Jackson and Sharpton joined Governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and Mayor of Charleston Joseph P. Riley Jr. in attending funerals of the victims.

[289] Days before the election, Jackson cited several reasons for voters to support Clinton over Trump, including the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the appointment of U.S. Supreme Court justices and urged them to "join the right side of history".

[294] In April, he participated in the Miami, Florida, Hispanicize conference, where he called the Trump administration's efforts to set up deportation camps "Germanesque" and denounced the more than 30 Hispanic-owned firms who put in a bid to construct the border wall.

[298] In January 2018, Jackson delivered a sermon at a church in Fort Washington, Maryland, in which he accused Trump of being misleading and called him a "man of inherited wealth and privilege who seems to have no understanding of our situation".

"[300] In September, Jackson attended the Angela Project Conference with Congressman John Yarmuth and Mayor of Louisville Greg Fischer, noting injustices in America such as wealth inequality and the disproportionate number of imprisoned African-Americans.

[328] In June 2020, after the killing of Breonna Taylor, Jackson praised Mayor of Louisville Greg Fischer for announcing a review of police conduct and policies and criticized Senator Rand Paul for delaying a bill that would make lynching a hate crime.

[359][360] In 2021, Jackson was appointed Commander of the Legion of Honor, France's highest order of merit, presented by French president Emmanuel Macron, for his work in civil rights.

[406] Following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States,[407][408] Jackson joined other clergy at Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette to honor the 11 victims, saying, "When nine black lives were lost at Charleston, rabbis were there for us.