Pinback Button, "Jesse Jackson"

This pinback button supported Rev. Jesse L. Jackson’s historic run for president in 1983-1984. Jackson broke ground first trod by Shirley Chisolm, becoming the second African American to seek a major party’s nomination in a presidential primary. The button features a color photo of Jackson, who campaigned nationally for the nomination again in 1988. Made in Washington, DC, the button belonged to journalist Ethel L. Payne (1911-1991), a Chicago native who moved to the District in 1952 to cover national and international news for the preeminent African American newspaper, The Chicago Defender. A lifelong civil rights activist, Payne reported from thirty countries over the course of her own pioneering career, becoming known as the First Lady of the Black Press.