American pastor Jesse Jackson decorated with the Legion of Honor

“You are our brother” : It is with these words that the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron awarded Pastor Jesse Jackson the highest French distinction on Monday, July 19. In his speech, the president returned to “more than half a century” d’engagement “body and soul” by Jesse Jackson for civil rights, notably alongside Martin Luther King, assassinated in 1968. “The values ​​for which you fought are the same as those of the French Republic”, he said.

The Reverend also ran two campaigns, “full of panache” although they did not meet with success, for the Democratic nomination in the presidential elections of 1984 and 1988. He was also named by Bill Clinton emissary for Africa. Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 “would have been impossible without your fights”, in particular to promote the registration of African-Americans on the electoral rolls, underlined Emmanuel Macron. Even if relations between the pastor and the former President of the United States have at times been strained.

“You are a special friend of France”, also greeted the Head of State, recalling that Jesse Jackson had negotiated the release of French hostages during the First Gulf War in 1990.

“I am very grateful to receive such a prestigious decoration from the great and beloved French nation”, reacted for his part the American Reverend, 79, in a press release. The pastor, who revealed in 2017 to suffer from Parkinson’s disease, praised “the courageous and moral leadership of France to fight poverty, promote peace, act against climate change and promote diversity and racial tolerance”. “Let’s continue to work together” for these causes, he added.

Emmanuel Macron met face to face with the Baptist pastor before the ceremony in the village hall of the Elysee Palace where around a hundred people were gathered, including four of his five children and relatives from the United States. Also present was the former Minister of Justice Christine Taubira, who had already met the Reverend during a visit of the Reverend to Paris in 2016 on the occasion of the tenth ceremonies to commemorate the abolition of slavery in France . The event took place fifteen years after the adoption of the “Law tending to the recognition of the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity”, worn by the former Keeper of the Seals.

The career of the politician was however marked by controversies, accused in particular of anti-Semitism during his presidential campaign of 1984. Jesse Jackson had also been during a meal shared with Jean-Marie Le Pen in May 2016, but the reverend had assured not to know the co-founder of the FN and not to be aware of his coming.