City's tributes to 'humble' Jesse Jackson

A woman who met the American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson twice has described him as "lovely" and "humble".

Beverly Lindsay, who chairs Birmingham's Association of Jamaican Nationals, said that at their first meeting in Chicago she was invited back to his house.

"It was just like visiting one of my relatives on a Saturday morning", she said.

Jackson died at the age of 84 on Tuesday.

Lindsay said their first meeting was in 1993 when she was in Chicago as part of a trade mission from Birmingham.

She said it had been an "honour and a privilege" to meet him and that the group had been invited first to join him at church and then to visit his house for breakfast.

"In person he was just another black man, proud to be black and proud of his people," she said.

Jackson visited Birmingham in 2008 and again in 2013, when the pair met again.

She said he remembered her and was "just a lovely man".

Paying tribute to his lifetime of activism, she said his "life was defined by courage, conviction and an unwavering belief in justice".

She said he gave a "powerful voice to the marginalised" and his legacy "will live and continue to inspire future generations".

Birmingham city councillor Yvonne Mosquito also paid tribute to Jackson.

She said he had been "an exceptional, relentless, and fearless champion of social justice".

Mosquito had also met him on a number of occasions and said she had been "consistently struck by the depth of his political insight, his strategic clarity, and his unwavering moral conviction".

She said his life had been "devoted to building a fairer world for all people," despite the personal sacrifice and that he "never retreated, and never abandoned the cause of equality and human dignity".

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