Rev. Jesse Jackson Accused Of Sexual Harassment By Gay Ex-Employee

Politics | hiphopucit | April 15, 2011 at 12:13 pm

Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and leader of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is being accused of harassing a gay ex-staffer. Said ex-staffer claims that Jackson forced him to partake in raunchy activities and says the political activist is part of the other rainbow coalition on the low.

Windy City Times: Tommy R. Bennett, the former National Director of Community Relations at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has filed a complaint with the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations accusing Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. of harassment and his later termination because of his sexual orientation.

In the document, Tommy makes a number of claims about the way he was treated by Jesse and other PUSH employees. He says certain employees outright refused to work with Tommy because of his sexual orientation while some did not respect his authority. But the most shocking claims all center around Jesse himself.

Tommy claims that once he became Jesse’s travel assistant, he had to escort women to and from Jesse’s hotel room for sexual encounters and he had to clean up after they were finished.

He also claims that Jesse asked him to apply a cream to an area between his legs where he had a rash and that one night he was summoned to Jesse’s hotel room at 1am to take “notes” but he could see that Mr. Jackson was aroused.

He also shared this gem of a story that claims Jesse was partaking in sexual relations with men himself:

“Rev. Jackson stated that he played football and there was a gay high school teacher who took Rev. Jackson under his wings and told him that he needed educationto go along with football. Rev. Jackson said, ‘[F]rom that gay teacher, I got a good grade, I got to use his car, I got ten dollars and I got my dick sucked.’ Rev. Jackson said, ‘[T]hat’s not gay, that is surviving.’”

During his interview with Windy City Times, Tony (above) explained why he is filing this complaint:

“That’s one of the points I want to make. How many times has this happened to us? It’s like being raped and having it unreported. People are so afraid of these giants in our community. People won’t report it and won’t file lawsuits. So many people are afraid of [Jackson]. I can’t walk in fear like that. So many people are being discriminated against—being laid off with this false pretense of downsizing.”

So why did Tommy stay so long?

“Number one, I enjoyed what I did and I thought things would get better. He was really not a bad person to work for; it was the staff he had around him.”