Harry R. Jackson Jr.

Jackson was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the son of Harry Jackson Sr. and Essie Jackson. His family moved to Ohio from Florida three years before Jackson was born because a white policeman in Florida had nearly killed Jackson's father. Jackson became involved in political activism as a child with his mother. He attended Cincinnati Country Day School. In an interview, Jackson stated that he had been "the black kid at Country Day who stayed in the houses of wealthy white people". He received a tryout with the New England Patriots, but did not make the team. Jackson's family moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1973, eventually settling in Silver Spring, Maryland. Jackson obtained a high-level executive job at Republic Steel. He graduated from Harvard University with a master's degree in business administration. ==Ministry==

The death of his father caused Jackson to decide to become a Christian minister. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he preached in the inner city. Soon he took a job at Corning Glass (now Corning Incorporated) in Corning, New York, and preached in his free time. There, he founded a church called the Christian Hope Center, and his parishioners were mostly white. "We really broke racial barriers for a black man pastoring white people in 1981," he says. Jackson's work in Corning attracted attention. He was recruited to Beltsville, Maryland to become the pastor of Hope Christian Church, a "multiethnic megachurch" that later grew to 3,500 people. He ministered there for the rest of his life. ==Views, activism, and political involvement==

Jackson believed that same-sex marriage and abortion are morally wrong. He believed that abortion and gay marriage are causing the erosion of the black family, saying "I don't know of anybody black who says, 'I hate gay people.' We're more accepting generally. But you overlap that – homosexuality and gay marriage – with broken families, and we don't know how to put it back together," he said. "I believe that the Bible teaches that same-sex marriage is an oxymoron," he said. "If you redefine marriage, you have to redefine family. You'd have to redefine parenting. I'm looking at the extinction of marriage. And black culture is in a free fall." Jackson was the founder and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, an organization composed of ministers who actively promote socially conservative causes. Jackson concurred with Pope Benedict XVI's belief that condom distribution increases the incidence of AIDS. In 2009, Jackson wrote: "I agree with the Pope that a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease." Jackson argued that some police departments ought to be defunded and encouraged conservatives not to minimize the deaths of black men in the custody of law enforcement. According to Christianity Today, "Jackson achieved his greatest influence in Donald Trump’s White House, frequently attending functions, praying publicly, and advocating for policies such as the First Step Act, a prison reform bill that was signed into law in 2018. 'You can’t be a prophet to the culture while you’re standing outside of the room'. Jackson said in response to critics." Jackson prayed at Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017 and visited the White House on multiple occasions during the Trump administration. ==Books==

Jackson authored The Warrior’s Heart: Rules of Engagement for the Spiritual War Zone (2004) and You Were Born for More: Six Steps to Breaking Through to Your Destiny (2013). He also co-authored books with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and pollster George Barna. ==Personal life and death==

Jackson married his first wife, Vivian Michele Alexander, in 1976. Vivian served as a co-pastor of Hope Christian Church; she died in 2018. In September 2020, Jackson married Rosalind Lott. No cause of death was given. ==References==