Pastor Jesse Jackson (C), officials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the League of Cities, and the Latin American Citizens’ League held a press conference in Kenosha, Wisconsin to address the police shooting of Jacob Black Jr. The question was taken on August 27, 2020 in this file photo.
- Despite being vaccinated, Pastor Jesse Jackson was hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
- Both Jackson and his wife Jacqueline were treated at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago.
- Jackson was vaccinated against covid-19 in January, and he urged all black Americans to be vaccinated.
Delegates said on Saturday that despite being vaccinated, pastor Jesse Jackson, a veteran American civil rights activist, was still hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
Jackson, 79, and his wife, Jacqueline Jackson, 77, are receiving treatment at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, the pastor’s Rainbow PUSH alliance said in a statement on Facebook.
The short statement added: “Doctors are currently monitoring the condition of both. Anyone who has been around them for the past five or six days should follow the guidelines of the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Since the 1960s, Baptist Pastor Jackson has been the leader of the American civil rights movement, when he marched with Martin Luther King and helped raise funds for the cause.
He was the most prominent African-American running for the president of the United States. He tried two unsuccessful attempts to win the Democratic nomination in the 1980s until Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Jackson was vaccinated against the coronavirus in January this year. At that time, he issued a statement urging black Americans to vaccinate. Among them, the rate of hesitation about the vaccine was higher.
“For understandable reasons…African Americans have doubts about scientists and vaccines,” the statement said. However, if they “refuse the vaccine, everyone will be at risk.”
The Covid-19 vaccine is free and widely available in the United States, but only half of the population is fully vaccinated.
As Jackson announced his hospitalization, the United States is being hit by a new wave of Covid-19 cases driven by a highly infectious Delta variant, which has caused the nation’s daily cases to soar to more than 70 000, and fears that the effectiveness of the vaccine may weaken.
Jackson announced in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s disease.
The pastor who served as the special envoy of US President Bill Clinton to Africa was awarded France’s highest medal, the Legion of Honor, by French President Emmanuel Macron in July.
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