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Jonathan Jackson, a son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, won a crowded Democratic primary on Tuesday for the Chicago-based seat held by retiring Rep. Bobby Rush (D), setting him up to succeed the longtime lawmaker in Congress next year.
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Jackson beat out a long list of rivals in the Democratic primary for Illinois’s 1st Congressional District, including state Sen. Jacqueline Collins, Chicago alderman Pat Dowell, anti-abortion pastor Chris Butler, and Rush-endorsed attorney Karin Norington-Reaves. Winning the primary is tantamount to winning the general election in the heavily Democratic 1st District, which encompasses most of Chicago’s South Side while extending out to cover many of the city’s southwestern suburbs.
Rush has served in Congress continuously since he was first elected in 1992. Prior to pursuing a career in public office, Rush was a civil rights activist and Black Panther. He founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, and while he was involved with the organization, he served six months in prison on a weapons charge. He left the Black Panthers in 1974 and was eventually elected to the Chicago City Council, where he served for a decade before winning a seat in Congress.
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During his nearly three decades in Congress, Rush has staunchly advocated gun control and racial equality and has been a critic of police misconduct and U.S. foreign policy. As a congressman, he met with the deceased Cuban President Fidel Castro multiple times and went so far as to describe Castro as like “an old friend” after one such visit in 2009.
Jonathan Jackson will not be the first member of his high-profile family to be a House member. His brother, Jesse Jackson Jr., represented a nearby Chicago district for 17 years until his resignation in November 2012. A few months later, the ex-lawmaker pleaded guilty to one count of wire and mail fraud and ended up serving about a year and a half in federal prison.
