Jesse Jackson, to put it mildly, is a bit of a legend. Voted “most important black leader” in 2006 in an AP/AOL poll, Jackson is a luminary of the American civil rights movement. Today, he works as an international activist who has supported everything from the anti-war movement to the Northern Ireland peace process. It’s no surprise that his speech at the Union is packed, though he is now sitting in one of the Union rooms, an imposing figure with a deep, Southern-inflected baritone voice.

Jackson can easily be considered a living fragment of history. In a lifetime, Jackson has lived through an historical arc that encompasses segregation, the civil rights movement, and emancipation. It culminates in the election of the first African-American to become President. “Obama ran the magnificent last lap of a 60 year race,” Jackson concludes. In fact, Jackson ran twice for the Democratic nomination, and is widely credited as having introduced American society to the idea that a black man could be President.

In the lead-up to Obama’s election, Jackson was caught off-air, commenting that he wanted to “cut [Obama’s] nuts out” for “talking down to black people”. By the time Obama’s victory was announced, Jackson seemed to have put aside his misgivings: he was in tears in the moments before Obama’s victory speech. He now defends the much-criticised Obama: “He is raising the right issues against strong and entrenched interests […] At least he’s willing to fight the right fight.”

So what is the fate of a civil rights leader now that the civil rights movement has arguably reached its fruition? In Jackson’s opinion, the movement is far from over. African-Americans are still hit hard by wage inequality and poverty. When asked why this is the case despite civil rights legislation, Jackson replies, “We have up to now focussed on freedom. We must now focus on equality. That is the next step.”

He goes on to illustrate with the use of a sports analogy: “Why do we do so well on the soccer field? Because at least the playing field is equal and the rules are public... Under those conditions, we’ve done very well. Off the athletic field, access to education, healthcare, housing… the playing field’s not been even. The rules are not made public. And so this is the next stage of the struggle. Freedom is the prerequisite to get to equality. We must close those gaps. It is in everybody’s interest.”

Jackson talks a lot about things being in the public interest. Like any politician, he is strongly on-message and doesn’t deviate much from his self-made party line. The public interest is, in his mind, strongly linked to diversity, the latter being part of a “socialising process” that makes people “more comfortable with one another… In the last 25 years you’ve seen blacks and whites playing rugby together, playing cricket together, going to concerts together. Once, that didn’t happen. […] All this integration of relationships is removing barriers and building new worlds of possibility.”

And one of those worlds includes the voting power of ethnic minorities. Jackson, a supporter of “Operation Black Vote”, a campaign that aims to galvanise political participation among black Britons, is no stranger to the power of the vote.

Turnout for the 2008 election hit record levels, particularly in the African American community. “The black voice must know that it does have the power to determine [elections],” Jackson argues. He recalls saying to a predominantly black audience at a Brixton church, “No one knows your vote because they’ve not really seen it before. Those who need your vote must know that. You leverage that vote to gain equality of opportunity.” He is passionate about the issue. “As people come unto themselves, they have a new sense of self-expectation [sic]. And others start looking at the numbers after the election: where’d the votes come from? You begin to court that vote.”

It might even mean the emergence of Britain’s own Obama. But first, Jackson says, “Someone has to run. Somebody ought to run,” he emphasises. “What is there about 10 Downing Street that a black man or woman could not do?” He firmly believes that Britain is “ripe for a breakthrough.” According to Jackson, that “means running for every available office… To be judges, to be national leaders, to have a voice, to be in the Cabinet.” It won’t be easy – representation of ethnic minorities in British politics hovers at dispiritingly low levels. Out of 646 MPs currently serving, only 15 are from an ethnic minority. That’s 2.3 per cent of Parliament, compared with the 8 per cent of the UK population from a non-white background.

Later in the chamber, Jackson is electrifying. He delivers a speech that, whilst slow to start, eventually gets going. “Keep hope alive!” he admonishes the audience. The talk eventually ends half an hour late, with Jackson shaking the hands of anybody near him like a cross between an elder statesman and a rock star. Finally, he exits to loud cheers, pumping his hand in the air.

But looking around, you can’t help but notice that there are relatively few of the people Jackson’s concerned with – the “black”, “yellow” or “brown” faces he talks about. “I would challenge this University to make room for the real Britain. The 2010 version of Britain,” he says. The issue’s nothing new: just over one in ten Oxbridge students are from a non-white ethnic background. In Britain, though, issues of race have always taken a backseat to class, despite the two now being deeply intertwined.

Hearing it from the mouth of a famed civil rights leader somehow lends these well-trodden facts a new urgency; people leap up and give him two standing ovations before he leaves. But it doesn’t quite negate the fact that while Jackson may have been preaching to the choir, it was one that was mostly white. In a way, Jackson’s presence validates our progress; measured against the yardstick of what he’s been through, we congratulate ourselves on how far we’ve come. As he points out, though, we’ve still got a long way to go.