In the spring of 1968, many officers of the SCLC—including Jackson—were drawn away from other civil rights protests by the garbage collectors' strike in Memphis, Tennessee. The situation in that city was especially tense because many African-Americans who professed to be tired of passive resistance were willing and ready to fight. Tragically, King met a violent death by an assassin's bullet while standing on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Some controversy surrounds the moments just after King was wounded. Jackson claimed on national television that he was the last person to talk to King and that he had held the dying leader in his arms, getting blood all over his shirt. The other men present unanimously agreed that this was not true, that Jackson had been in the parking lot facing King when he was shot and had neither climbed the steps to the balcony afterward nor gone to the hospital with King. Whatever the truth of the matter, Jackson's appearance on national television the next day with his bloodied turtleneck jersey vaulted him into national prominence. The image of Jackson and his bloody shirt brought the horror of the assassination into American homes. Jackson's ego, stirring oratory and charismatic presence caused the media to anoint him and not Ralph Abernathy, King's successor. Many observers believe that at this point, Jackson determined to become heir to King's position as the nation's foremost African American leader. In 1971, Jackson was suspended from the SCLC after its leaders claimed that he was using the organization to further his own personal agenda. Operation PUSH


After his suspension from the SCLC, Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), an organization which essentially continued the work of Operation Breadbasket without SCLC's sponsorship. Standing in front of a picture of Dr. King, Jackson promised to begin "a rainbow coalition of blacks and whites gathered together to push for a greater share of economic and political power for all poor people in America." Throughout the decade, Jackson relentlessly spoke out against racism, militarism and the class divisions in American. He became a household name throughout the nation with his slogan "I Am Somebody". By the mid-1970s, Jackson was a national figure. He realized that many of the problems plaguing the African-American community stemmed from drug abuse and teen pregnancy and not simply economic deprivation. In 1976, Jackson created the PUSH-Excel, a program aimed at motivating children and teens to succeed.