As the nation gathers to honor the life of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the American Postal Workers Union mourns a true champion of working people, civil rights, and our public Postal Service. Rev. Jackson passed away on Feb. 17 at the age of 84. Today, he lies in state at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago, with services continuing through the coming weeks in South Carolina and Washington, D.C.
Rev. Jackson’s connection to the Postal Service was personal. He was raised by a postal worker. His stepfather, Charles Henry Jackson, was a post office maintenance worker in Greenville, SC, who adopted the young Jesse and gave him the name he would carry for the rest of his life. A good union job in the Postal Service helped give a family stability, and from that family came one of America’s greatest civil rights leaders.
And Rev. Jackson never forgot where he came from. He came back and stood with us, again and again.
In 2010, he marched with thousands of APWU members through the streets of downtown Detroit to Save Saturday Service, telling the crowd, “We are postal workers fighting back. It’s time to save our jobs and Save Our Service!” In 2014, when the APWU launched the Stop Staples campaign to fight privatization of our retail operations, Rev. Jackson was there again, rallying alongside our members in Chicago and leading chants of “Public jobs belong to public people.”
The best way to honor Rev. Jackson is to keep fighting. For our jobs, our service, our communities, and the public Postal Service he loved and defended.
In solidarity,
APWU President Jonathan Smith & the National Executive Board