Samuel Leroy Jackson (born 21 December 1948) is an American actor and film producer who was active in the Civil Rights movement during his youth. Jackson was an usher at Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral, one of the hostage takers at Morehouse College in 1969, and a supporter of the Black Panthers during the era, and he would later become a Democratic Party supporter and a campaigner for Barack Obama.
Biography[]
Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington DC on 21 December 1948, the son of Roy Henry Jackson and Elizabeth Montgomery. Jackson was raised by his mother in Chattanooga, Tennessee after his father abandoned the family, and he played in the band at his segregated high school. Jackson decided to study marine biology at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, but he later switched his major to acting. Jackson became involved with the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta; Martin Luther King Jr. was probably Morehouse's most famous alumnus.
In 1968, Jackson was one of the ushers at Dr. King's funeral, and he took part in an equal rights protest march in Memphis after the assassination. In 1969, Jackson was one of several Morehouse College students who took the faculty hostage and demanded reform on the school's curriculum and governance, and the college agreed to change its policy; nevertheless, he was suspended after being found guilty of unlawful confinement. Jackson headed to Los Angeles to become a social worker, and he returned to Atlanta to meet Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and other SNCC leaders, and he decided to become active with the Black Panthers. He felt empowered due to his involvement with the group, especially after it started to buy guns, but his mother forced Jackson to head to Los Angeles before he could engage in an armed confrontation, as the FBI warned his mother that Jackson would be dead within a year if he remained in the Panthers. Jackson was never a formal member of the group, denying his membership in the Black Panther Party in 2018.
In 1972, Jackson would earn his Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama, and he became an actor. Jackson would make it big with Quentin Tarantino's help during the 1990s, and he would become the highest-grossing actor in the world during the 21st century, making around $69,000,000 in every film that he appeared in. In 2008, he campaigned for Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama, and he also raised money to fight against testicular cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and poverty in South Africa. In 2024, he endorsed Kamala Harris and spoke at one of her rallies.