Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an American church minister, activist and politician. Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns, in Greenville, South Carolina. His mother, Helen Burns, was 16 years old at the time he was born. She never married his father, Noah Louis Robinson. When Jackson was two, his mother married Charles Jackson. Jesse was raised by his grandmother Matilda until he was 13. In 1957, he returned home when his step-father adopted him.