The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who died Tuesday at the age of 84, is being remembered by Connecticut leaders for his advocacy for equal rights.
Donald Smart, an attorney based in Milford, first met Jackson in 1982 at an NAACP event in New York. Smart said he still remembers Jackson's friendliness and ability to captivate audiences.
“He was an unusually skilled orator, and he had been brought up in the great Baptist tradition of preaching and the call and response the cadence of the congregation, and so he brought all of those skills and that history into his communications, his speeches, his exhorting the crowd to stand up for civil rights,” Smart said.
Smart said Jackson brought awareness nationwide to economic and racial inequality.
Throughout the decades, Jackson made several appearances in Connecticut.
One of his most well-known appearances was in Bridgeport, where he appeared twice in 1991. During that visit, Jackson called on the state to clear an illegal dump in the city's East End neighborhood, known as Mt. Trashmore by residents.
Jackson visited Connecticut again in 1991, and joined other civil rights leaders in a march from Bridgeport to Hartford to call for economic equality after the end of the Persian Gulf War.
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, a Democrat who represents Bridgeport, said he witnessed the march when he was 12yearsold, and it left an impression.
“Even then I understood the power of his voice and leadership,” Rosario said. "His work did not just inspire our city but reached far beyond, standing with communities like Vieques, Puerto Rico, against injustice and advocating for those whose voices were too often ignored.”
Dori Dumas, president of the Greater New Haven NAACP chapter, remembers being a teenager when Jackson gave a speech at her high school in New Haven.
Dumas said the speech gave young people a sense of purpose and pride. Jackson was known for reciting the poem, “I am Somebody,” by the late civil rights activist, Rev. Williams Holmes Borders Sr.
“By the time he left, we all were chanting, ‘I am somebody; keep hope alive,’" Dumas said.
