A female journalist on Tuesday accused the Rev Jesse Jackson of groping her.
Danielle Young, a writer for the online site The Root, penned an article in which she alleges that Jackson touched her inappropriately while also making a crude sexual remark during an encounter in Chicago three years ago.
‘I walked toward Jackson, smiling, and he smiled back at me,’ Young wrote.
‘His eyes scanned my entire body. All of a sudden, I felt naked in my sweater and jeans.
‘As I walked within arm’s reach of him, Jackson reached out a hand and grabbed my thigh, saying, “I like all of that right there!” and gave my thigh a tight squeeze.’
The article includes a number of photographs of the encounter. Although there is no picture of Jackson touching Young’s thighs, the civil rights leader is seen hugging and embracing Young.
Young wrote that even though she is seen smiling and laughing in the photos, it was simply a defense mechanism. ‘I did what most women in an uncomfortable position do: I giggled,’ Young wrote
‘I was shocked, to say the least,’ she wrote.
‘Even though Jackson had had his hand reached out, I had no idea that he would touch me in a sexual way.’
Young claimed that the incident was witnessed by people who were there.
'A few of my co-workers saw Jackson’s hand grip my thigh as it was happening, and they laughed harder than I did,' she wrote.
‘I admired this man who marched alongside the Rev Martin Luther King Jr, a man who represented our ability to overcome, a man who is really…just a man,' she wrote
'Their laughter didn’t feel like the same type of nervous laughter I had when my thigh was in his hand.
'Theirs was as if they had just heard the best joke ever. It was almost an encouragement of Jackson’s behavior.
'I’m not blaming them; I’m just curious as to why most of them thought what happened was more funny than alarming. That’s concerning.'
