Former Illinois U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. spoke out against gerrymandering in a speech to members of the Divine 9 fraternities and sororities in Raleigh on April 8, 2026. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Former Illinois U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. denounced recent state and federal court decisions on redistricting, voting rights, and public education in a speech in Raleigh on Wednesday, casting them as the latest in a long line of racially discriminatory measures in North Carolina and across the South.
“North Carolina, I’ve been gone for a minute, but we never seem to get over Jesse Helms,” he said, invoking the longtime North Carolina U.S. Senator alongside South Carolina segregationist Strom Thurmond. “The threat to democracy is a threat to who we are existentially.”
The speech came as the keynote address for the Divine 9 Legislative Day, inviting members of the nine historically Black fraternities and sororities that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council to mobilize toward civic action. Other speakers included Gov. Josh Stein, Attorney General Jeff Jackson, and state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.
In his keynote speech, Jackson condemned gerrymandering efforts in North Carolina, echoing earlier speakers who denounced the most recent mid-decade redistricting map intended to unseat Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.), one of three Black members of Congress representing North Carolina.
Jackson linked North Carolina’s redistricting to the national push by Republicans to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts that have historically elected Black Democratic representatives.
“When we do lose 73% Black districts, we lose the voice of John Conyers. We lose the voice of Maxine Waters,” he said. “When these lines change and we have to campaign on all sides of town, other than just our own, the history is lost, and the quality of our voices are affected by that process.”
North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls spoke out against recent reversals by the conservative majority on the state Supreme Court in a Divine 9 Legislative Day speech on April 8, 2026. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)Jackson recounted his efforts to register his classmates as a student at North Carolina A&T and his fight for a polling place in the school’s student union. He commended the students who protested this year in Raleigh to make that same demand. “15,000 students is more than enough students to elect the mayor of Greensboro, North Carolina,” he said.
He noted that in 2020, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley lost her seat by only 401 votes — reiterating a point made by state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, who is seeking reelection to maintain her place as one of two Democrats on the state’s highest court this November.
In her remarks to the gathering, Earls likewise criticized the court’s Republican majority for reversals on gerrymandering and equal funding for public education, the latter of which came last week.
“The media has been telling you that the court said, ‘Well, it’s not the court’s responsibility to decide education policy,’” Earls said. “But what was at stake in the Leandro case? Our children’s rights. And it is absolutely the role of the court to enforce those rights.”
Jackson also decried the state Supreme Court’s decision to reverse its previous ruling that would have required state lawmakers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on public education in lower-income communities.
North Carolina Supreme Court vacates nine years of Leandro school funding orders
“We deserve, in America, the constitutional right to demand” equal treatment, Jackson said.“If that high school on the other side of town has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, class sizes less than 15 students, every child with a laptop, an iPad, and studying AI, and learning more about the world economy, and traveling to Washington and spending time in Paris — if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us.”.
After his keynote, Jackson accepted a posthumous Order of the Longleaf Pine award — North Carolina’s highest civilian honor — on behalf of his father, Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died in February. Both men attended North Carolina A&T and were members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, one of the Divine 9.
Jackson said he looked forward to presenting the award to his mother, who met his father at North Carolina A&T and introduced him to her studies on Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance to British rule in India and the American civil rights movement. “At 82 years old, she is extremely grateful for every act of kindness and recognition of the sacrifice that they made together for more than 65 years,” he said.
North Carolina has not always been a place of solace for Jackson. After his conviction for fraudulent use of campaign funds in 2013, he began his 30-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C., just 25 miles from where he gave his keynote speech Wednesday.
South Carolina state Rep. Roger Kirby and state Sen. Ronnie Sabb look up to the South Carolina Statehouse’s third-floor balcony during the ceremony honoring the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday, March 2, 2026. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)His father, he said, told him to seek out the fellowship of his fraternity brothers as he wrestled with how to move forward from his time in prison.
“Those of us who are products of the experience of what it means to be Black in America have long welcomed wayward sons and people who’ve had difficult journeys back home,” Jackson told the audience. “We are not in a position where we can discard a single person.”
Jackson’s conviction didn’t stop him from attempting a political comeback earlier this year in the primary for Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District.
“One day, I woke up and this nation elected and sent somebody to Washington, D.C. with 34 felonies,” Jackson said. “I said, if he can go to Washington with 34, I can try to go with just two.”
Jackson ultimately fell short in his bid, coming in second to Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, who he noted is a member of another Divine 9 organization, Alpha Kappa Alpha. “I lost to one of your sisters, and I’m OK with it,” he quipped to the crowd.
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