Samuel L. Jackson has never been particularly interested in keeping his political opinions to himself. But one of his most outspoken attacks on Donald Trump carries a history that stretches back decades, long before the actor became one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

In a June 2023 interview with Rolling Stone, conducted while he was promoting Marvel's Secret Invasion, Jackson compared Trump to the racist white people he encountered while growing up in the segregated American South.

"When I see Trump, I see the same rednecks I saw when I was growing up," the actor said, recalling people who subjected him to racial abuse and attempted to keep him in what they considered his place.

Jackson extended that criticism to the Republican Party, arguing that its treatment of young people and gay Americans reflected a broader hostility towards anyone perceived as different. His assessment was uncompromising: "If you're not them, you're the enemy."

The remarks attracted attention for their directness. Yet they were part of a much wider conversation about civil rights, political resistance and Jackson's own experiences of racial segregation.

From segregation to Martin Luther King's funeral

Jackson's political views were shaped by experiences that most audiences familiar with his Hollywood career have never witnessed.

Raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during segregation, he grew up in a society where racial discrimination affected everyday life, from education to interactions with white residents.

By 1968, Jackson was studying at Morehouse College in Atlanta, an institution closely associated with the American civil rights movement. That April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had travelled to support striking sanitation workers.

Jackson was among the students who subsequently travelled to Memphis to join demonstrations supporting the workers. He then returned to Atlanta and volunteered as an usher at King's funeral on 9 April 1968.

The funeral included a service on the Morehouse campus, a detail confirmed by the college's historical records.

For Jackson, the experience was far more than an encounter with an important historical figure. It helped shape his involvement in political activism during his college years.

In a 2019 interview with CBS News, Jackson discussed his participation in campus protests at Morehouse, including an occupation of university offices that resulted in his expulsion. He later returned to complete his education.

Why Jackson believes America's divisions never disappeared

The connection between Jackson's childhood and his criticism of Trump becomes clearer when his comments are considered alongside his reflections on more recent protests.

During a June 2020 interview with CNN, following George Floyd's killing, Jackson expressed admiration for the demonstrators who had taken to the streets across the United States.

He was particularly struck by the racial diversity of the crowds, contrasting them with the demonstrations he remembered from the 1960s and 1970s.

That distinction resurfaced in his 2023 Rolling Stone interview. Jackson praised the participation of young people from different backgrounds but argued that the political resistance to social change remained familiar.

His criticism of Trump was therefore not simply a reaction to one politician's personality or rhetoric. It reflected Jackson's interpretation of a much longer struggle over racial equality, political power and the treatment of minority communities.

It is important to distinguish that personal assessment from an established conclusion about every Republican voter. Jackson was describing how contemporary politics appeared to him through the experiences of someone who had lived under segregation and participated in the civil rights movement.

There is also an important timeline to the comments. Jackson made them in 2023, when Trump was a former president and campaigning to return to the White House. They were not a new statement issued in response to a development in 2026.

What makes the interview revealing is the contrast between Jackson's public image and the history behind his political convictions. To millions, he is Nick Fury, Jules Winnfield or Mace Windu. But his political outlook was developing years before any of those characters reached the screen, during an era of American history that he remembers firsthand.