Iconic Civil Rights leader spoke at
Lebanon Baptist; passed away last week
‘Rev. Jesse Jackson: We are learning to live together,” was the headline on the article in the Aug. 4, 2011 Southside Sentinel on the Rev. Jesse Jackson preaching at Lebanon Baptist Church in Saluda.
On Sunday, July 31, 2011, Baptist minister and civil rights leader Rev. Jackson, came to Saluda at the request of Middlesex native George Gresham to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the new Lebanon Baptist Church building in Saluda.
Gresham is a former president of the largest union in the nation, hospital workers’ union 1199SEIU. He is a native of Middlesex County and lived here as a child before moving with his family to New York. He attended Rappahannock Central Elementary School at Cooks Corner when it was an all-Black elementary school. Gresham was president of the health care union from 2007 until his defeat in a union election in 2025.
Jackson’s life
Civil Rights leader and national political figure Jesse Jackson, 84, died on Feb. 17, 2026 at his home in Chicago. He was miss-diagnosed in 2017 with Parkinson’s disease, actually having supranuclear palsy, and had suffered with health issues…
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