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Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Baptist minister and two-time presidential candidate whose booming oratory and populist message propelled the Civil Rights Movement in the decades after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died Tuesday, his family said.
He was 84.
"Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, said in a statement that “our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices” and paid tribute to a man who “carried history in his footsteps and hope in his voice.”
"Reverend Jackson stood wherever dignity was under attack, from apartheid abroad to injustice at home. His voice echoed in boardrooms and in jail cells," Sharpton said.
A cause of death was not immediately given. Jackson's family said he died peacefully surrounded by his loved ones.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson at a Democratic gathering in Cheyenne, Wyo., on April 20, 1989.Mark Junge / Getty Images
He was admitted to a hospital in November and had been living for more than a decade with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to his Rainbow PUSH Coalition. PSP affects patients’ ability to walk and swallow and can lead to dangerous complications.
Jackson revealed he had Parkinson’s in 2017. He was treated as an outpatient at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago for at least two years before he shared his diagnosis with the public.
Public observances will be held in Chicago and future plans for celebration of life events will be announced by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Jackson family said in its statement Tuesday.
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and rose to prominence in the Civil Rights era, participating in demonstrations alongside King. His activism spanned decades, including two runs for the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988.
Jackson called the State Department decision revoking the visa of white South African boxer Kallie Knoetze in 1979 a "human rights victory" and credited the Carter administration with continuing its fight for human rights.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
In the first race, he won more than 18% of the primary vote and a handful of primaries and caucuses.
“Merely by being black and forcing other candidates to consider his very real potential to garner black votes, which they need, Jackson has had an impact,” read a 1984 New York Times profile.
Four years later, he built on that success by winning 11 primaries and caucuses.
Jackson began his work as an organizer with the Congress of Racial Equality, participating in marches and sit-ins. He attended North Carolina A&T State University and graduated with a degree in sociology. He began rallying student support for King during his divinity studies at Chicago Theological Seminary and participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama.
Shortly afterward, Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, to work alongside King full time. He drew praise from King as a young man running the SCLC’s economic development and empowerment program, Operation Breadbasket — “we knew he was going to do a good job, but he’s done better than a good job,” King said.
Jackson shakes hands at the 20th-anniversary commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Freedom March, also known as the "March on Washington."Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
As he grew as an organizer, Jackson married Jacqueline Brown, who survives him, in 1962. They have five children, including former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.
Jackson, who was at the motel in Memphis, Tennessee, with King when he was assassinated in 1968, did not let up after King’s death. He took his vision for Black liberation even further by founding People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, in 1971. He resigned from the SCLC that year to start PUSH after he was suspended from the organization; he was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain. PUSH worked to improve economic conditions of Black communities in the country and later expanded to politics with direct action campaigns and social areas through a weekly radio show and awards for Black people.
Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid prompted the launch of his National Rainbow Coalition, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s policies and advocated for social programs, voting rights and affirmative action. PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition merged in 1996 and are now the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
His 1984 campaign angered some Democrats who said his ideas were too left-leaning and would hurt the party in the general election. Jackson dismissed the concerns.
“The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near-poor back on front of the American agenda,” Jackson said of the 1984 campaign in a 1996 interview with PBS. “This is a dangerous mission, and yet it’s a necessary mission!”
Jackson announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on Nov. 3, 1983.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
Jackson’s 1984 campaign was marred when he referred to Jewish people as “hymies” and called New York City “hymietown” in a Washington Post interview. He initially denied having made the remarks and accused Jewish people of targeting his campaign. He later admitted having used the slur and offered an impassioned apology.
In 1991, Jackson was elected as one of Washington’s two “shadow senators” to lobby for D.C. statehood and served one term.
That same year, Jackson showed he could also poke fun at himself by making a cameo appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in which he gave a rousing, preacher-style reading of the Dr. Seuss classic "Green Eggs and Ham."
Jackson greets community residents before departing Vernon AME Church in Tulsa, Okla., on May 30, 2021. Brandon Bell / Getty Images
Tributes poured in for Jackson, with prominent figures across the political spectrum praising the late civil rights activist.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a post to X called Jackson "a legendary voice for the voiceless." Former President Joe Biden said that Jackson would be remembered as "a man of God and of the people" who "believed in his bones the promise of America: that we are all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives."
In a joint statement, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Jackson "never stopped working for a better America with brighter tomorrows." Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, in a statement, reflected on how Jackson's activism "laid the foundation" for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. "We stood on his shoulders," they said.
President Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday that Jackson "was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and 'street smarts.'"
"He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences," Trump said in the post. "Jesse will be missed!"
In recent decades, Jackson was outspoken about leading politicians, includingObama. He condemned Trump’s presidency, saying, “Fifty years of civil rights have been threatened.” Jackson endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2020 presidential election, and Sanders made sure to praise him on the campaign trail.
“It is one of the honors of my life to be supported by a man who has put his life on the line for the last 50 years fighting for justice,” Sanders said at the time.
