Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died aged 84, family says
The Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil rights activist and two-time presidential candidate, died on Tuesday aged 84, his family said, according to NBC News.
A statement from the Jackson family read:
Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.
We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.
His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.
The cause of Jackson’s death was not given. His family said he died peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones.
Key events
How Jesse Jackson moved from activism to the mainstream political arena
As well as being a prominent civil rights campaigner, Jackson became a focal point of black political power after running twice for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988.
He was the first African American to make the giant leap from activism to major-party presidential politics, firmly cementing his place in the history books in doing so.
Here is some more from Jackson’s political career (courtesy of my colleagues’ story):
In 1984, Jackson ran as a Democratic candidate for president, becoming the second Black person to launch a nationwide campaign following Shirley Chisholm more than a decade earlier …
He lost the Democratic nomination to former vice-president Walter Mondale, with the incumbent Republican president Ronald Reagan ultimately winning the election.
After his first presidential run, Jackson created the National Rainbow Coalition to push for voting rights and social programs. In the mid-1990s, Jackson merged his two organizations together to form the multiracial group Rainbow Push Coalition, which focuses on educational and economic equality.
Throughout the years, the coalition has paid more than $6m in college scholarships, and gave financial assistance to more than 4,000 families facing foreclosures so that they could save their homes, according to their website.
Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination for president a second time in 1988, performing strongly but losing out to Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor, who was beaten heavily in the general election by George HW Bush.
What was Jesse Jackson’s trailblazing role in the civil rights movement?
My colleagues Melissa Hellmann and Martin Pengelly have looked back at the Rev Jesse Jackson’s extraordinary contribution to the civil rights movement and how he fought for the rights of Black Americans and other people of colour alongside his mentor Martin Luther King Jr:
A fixture in the civil rights movement and Democratic politics since the 1960s, Jackson was once close to Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
In an interview with the Guardian in May 2020, Jackson said: “I was a trailblazer, I was a pathfinder. I had to deal with doubt and cynicism and fears about a Black person running. There were Black scholars writing papers about why I was wasting my time. Even Blacks said a Black couldn’t win.”
“It was a big moment in history,” Jackson told the Guardian, 12 years later.
Twenty years later, the first Black president, Barack Obama, saluted Jackson for making his victory possible. Obama celebrated in Chicago, also home to Jackson …
In 1964, Jackson enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary, as he continued to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson travelled with his classmates to Selma, Alabama to join the movement after he watched news footage of “Bloody Sunday, where King led nonviolent civil rights marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, who were then beaten by law enforcement. Impressed by Jackson’s leadership at Selma, King offered him a position with the civil rights group that he co-founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
After a couple of years, Jackson put his seminary studies on hold to focus on SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket, an economic justice program that harnessed the power of Black churches by calling on ministers to put pressure companies to employ more Black people through negotiations and boycotts. In 1967, Jackson became Operation Breadbasket’s national director, and was ordained as a minister a year later.
“We knew he was going to do a good job,” King said at an Operation Breadbasket meeting in 1968, “but he’s done better than a good job”.
Tragedy struck soon after Jackson gained a leadership position at SCLC. On 4 April, 1968, Jackson witnessed King’s assassination from below the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
As we mentioned in the opening post, no cause of death was immediately given by the Rev Jesse Jackson’s family.
In 2017, he revealed he had Parkinson’s, an incurable neurological disease that can cause tremors and affect coordination.
“After a battery of tests, my physicians identified the issue as Parkinson’s disease, a disease that bested my father,” Jackson said at the time.
“Recognition of the effects of this disease on me has been painful, and I have been slow to grasp the gravity of it.”
Jackson had had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) for more than a decade. He was also twice hospitalised with Covid in recent years.
Our father left an ‘indelible mark on history’, family says
Here is the Jackson family statement in full:
It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. He died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family.
His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity. A tireless change agent, he elevated the voices of the voiceless from his Presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilising millions to register to vote – leaving an indelible mark on history.
Reverend Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; their children – Santita, Jesse Jr., Jonathan, Yusef, Jacqueline; daughter Ashley Jackson, and grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his mother, Helen Burns Jackson; father, Noah Louis Robinson; and stepfather, Charles Henry Jackson.
“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world. We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
Public observances will be held in Chicago. Final arrangements for Reverend Jackson’s celebration of life services, including all public events, will be released by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died aged 84, family says
The Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil rights activist and two-time presidential candidate, died on Tuesday aged 84, his family said, according to NBC News.
A statement from the Jackson family read:
Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.
We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.
His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.
The cause of Jackson’s death was not given. His family said he died peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones.