Born into a family steeped in human rights activism, Jackson traveled the world as an
aide de camp to his father. He traveled to Syria in 1983, when his father negotiated with Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad to release captured American pilot
Robert Goodman. He met
Fidel Castro in 1984, when his father negotiated the release of 22 Americans being held in Cuba. He was also with his father in August 2005, when he traveled to
Venezuela to meet Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez. This followed controversial remarks by televangelist
Pat Robertson implying that Chávez should be assassinated. Jackson condemned Robertson's remarks as immoral. He has highlighted the personal stories and continued trials of those who accused the
Chicago Police Department of torturing them to obtain confessions that landed them in prison. They include Darrell Cannon, who faced the death penalty for a 1983 drug-related murder. Cannon was released after accepting a January 2001 deal to abandon his torture claim in exchange for being released, according to the Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions. Jackson has also showcased the travails of Oscar Walden, who in 1952 became Illinois's first exoneree. Walden was freed after being sentenced to 75 years for a rape he did not commit. Jackson has championed the cause of Johnnie Lee Savory, a Peoria native convicted of stabbing to death his friends Connie Cooper and James Robinson in their Peoria home in 1977. After serving over 28 years in prison, Savory was released on parole on December 19, 2006. Jackson is among several notables who have petitioned the Illinois governor—first
Rod Blagojevich, then
Pat Quinn—to order
DNA testing in Savory's case to prove not only that did Savory not kill his friends, but also to pinpoint the person widely suspected of committing the crime. In 2008, Jackson turned his attention to the closures of
Chicago Public Schools. He has led several schools to public hearings and civic education training to thwart school closures and turnarounds by private companies in favor of investing in existing schools and keeping a community's institutional memory intact—especially in highly mobile neighborhoods where large numbers of students are homeless or living on the economic margins. In February 2010, he succeeded in helping Guggenheim Elementary School get off the closure list. Guggenheim is in the
Englewood community on the city's South Side. Jackson, among others, made the case that forcing students to walk any further to school put them in harm's way. They also made the case that Guggenheim's test scores have steadily improved and it had a close-knit community with the momentum to achieve further gains. Previously, Jackson had persuaded school officials to abandon plans to close Holmes Elementary School, among others. and activists who assert that over-reliance on test scores and privatizing of public schools through wholesale charters and outsourcing allows schools to cherry-pick their student bodies while siphoning resources from the most marginalized children. They consider programs such as
No Child Left Behind and
charter schools as a divestment of public education. ==Professional career==