Following Chicago’s long tradition of oral histories, the Chicago Theological Seminary has produced an oral history project on the city’s Civil Rights Movement — an archival work about Operation Breadbasket, featuring onetime seminary student the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., among others.

       Created with the help of a grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the archive shows how the seminary acted as an incubator for the movement’s early leaders, said the Rev. Brian Smith, director of community relations and strategic partnerships at the seminary.

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       In 1966, Jackson became head of the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, the economic development arm of the Civil Rights Movement organization Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as well as one of the leaders of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s open housing marches in Chicago.