Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon, dies at 84

[ad_1] The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights chief, Baptist minister and pioneering politician who launched two bids for the U.S. presidency, died on Tuesday morning on the age of 84, his household stated in a press release.

"Our father was a servant chief -- not solely to our household, however to the oppressed, the unvoiced, and the neglected all over the world," the household assertion stated.

"We shared him with the world, and in return, the world turned a part of our prolonged household. His unwavering perception in justice, equality, and love uplifted hundreds of thousands, and we ask you to honor his reminiscence by persevering with the battle for the values he lived by," it added.

Jackson is survived by his spouse, Jacqueline Jackson, whom he married in 1962, and 6 youngsters.

Rev. Jesse Jackson poses within the Rainbow Push headquarters in Chicago, August 4, 2011.

John Gress/Corbis through Getty Pictures

Jackson had weathered a myriad of well being points in recent times. In November 2025, Jackson was hospitalized in Chicago for therapy of issues from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative situation that he had been managing for a decade, in accordance with a press release from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights group Jackson based.

"Reverend Jackson is in steady situation and is respiratory with out the help of machines," the Jackson household stated in a press release a number of days after Jackson's hospitalization, in response to hypothesis about his situation. "Opposite to particular reviews, he isn't on life assist."

"The Jackson household extends heartfelt appreciation for the numerous prayers and sort messages provided throughout this time," the assertion additionally stated. Jackson was launched from the hospital the next week.

An additional household replace on Jackson's well being got here in mid-December 2025, when it launched a press release saying that Jackson had been launched from an acute-care facility the place he had "obtained extra care" following his hospital launch. The assertion additionally stated Jackson "has battled a number of infections per the development of his PSP prognosis" for "the final a number of months."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson stops by an indication exterior the U.S. Capitol to protest the expiration of the federal moratorium on residential evictions in Washington, U.S., on Aug. 2, 2021.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

In 2017, Jackson introduced that he'd been identified with Parkinson's illness. Nevertheless, the November 2025 announcement stated that the PSP prognosis had been confirmed the earlier April.

Starting his profession as a protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson rapidly rose to change into one of many nation's most outstanding and influential civil rights leaders. In 1971, he shaped the nonprofit Operation PUSH – Individuals United to Save/Serve Humanity – to advocate for social and financial parity for Black Individuals.

Jackson ran for president twice, each instances as a Democrat, inserting third for the get together's nomination in 1984 and second in 1988, marking probably the most profitable presidential runs of any Black candidate previous to Barack Obama's twenty years later.

Following his first marketing campaign, Jackson shaped the nonprofit Nationwide Rainbow Coalition with the said goal of affording minority Individuals a better political voice. In 1996, Jackson merged the teams into Rainbow/PUSH, and served as the top of each till 2023.

Jackson was additionally elected in 1990 because the shadow delegate for the District of Columbia, serving a single time period. In 2000, President Invoice Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Director of PUSH, (Individuals United To Save Humanity) in Chiago.

Bettmann Archive through Getty Pictures

Jesse Louis Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, within the segregated South, and grew up poor in a sharecropping household. He was a gifted pupil and athlete, graduating from highschool with provides for a minor league baseball contract and a Massive 10 soccer scholarship.

He opted as a substitute to attend the College of Illinois earlier than transferring to and graduating from North Carolina A&T, a traditionally Black college. He then started theological research earlier than going to work full-time with Dr. King and the Southern Christian Management Convention (SCLC). He was ordained a Baptist a minister in 1968.

In 1966, 24-year-old Jackson turned head of the Chicago Chapter of the nascent Operation Breadbasket, the financial activism arm of the SCLC, and was appointed its nationwide director the next yr. He additionally helped set up the Chicago Freedom Motion to work for open housing and faculty desegregation.

Jackson participated in most of the civil rights motion's landmark moments, together with the March on Washington in 1963, the place King delivered his well-known "I Have a Dream" speech, and the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama in 1965. He was additionally with Dr. King when the civil rights chief was fatally shot on the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

Civil Rights chief, Jesse Jackson with Dr Martin Luther King, in 1966.

Common Historical past Archive through Getty Pictures

Reflecting on Dr. King's reminiscence virtually 50 years later, Jackson stated he was impressed by his capability to stay undaunted even within the face of overwhelming challenges.

"He's a body of reference. His resurrection is highly effective," Jackson stated in a 2018 interview with ABC Chicago station WLS.

Talking of King's assassination, Jackson added, "All I can keep in mind is a few voice saying, 'One bullet can't kill a motion.' We should preserve going ... In case your key participant is damage on the sphere you can not forfeit the sport, you must internalize your ache and preserve marching and preserve transferring, and now we have to be trustworthy to his cost 50 years later."

Three years after King's homicide, Jackson left the SCLC and based Operation PUSH, a social justice group devoted to bettering the financial circumstances of Black communities throughout the U.S.

The group fought for better academic and employment alternatives for Black Individuals and was profitable in compelling main firms to undertake affirmative motion insurance policies benefiting Black employees.

Jackson's social activism developed into political ambition in within the Eighties, when he launched two campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988. He positioned third in major voting in 1984 and got here in second to Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, successful 12 primaries and caucuses and receiving some 6.9 million whole votes.

American non secular civil rights chief and politician Reverend Jesse Jackson speaks on the headquarters of Operation PUSH (Individuals United to Save Humanity), Chicago, July 17, 1981.

Antonio Dickey/Getty Pictures

As solely the second Black American to mount a nationwide presidential marketing campaign, after New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972, Jackson's historic runs had been probably the most profitable by a Black candidate till President Barack Obama gained in 2008.

Jackson in the end did win political workplace, when he was elected to serve within the U.S. Senate as a shadow delegate for the District of Columbia, from 1991 to 1997.

Jackson additionally used his expertise as a negotiator to facilitate the liberty of individuals held overseas, resulting in the discharge of Navy pilot Robert Goodman in 1984 from captivity in Lebanon after his aircraft was shot down, in addition to three American prisoners of warfare held by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 1999.

In 2000, President Invoice Clinton awarded Jackson a frequent critic of Clinton and his insurance policies – the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of Jackson's many years of social activism.

"It is laborious to think about how we may have come so far as now we have with out the artistic energy, the eager mind, the loving coronary heart, and the relentless ardour of Jesse Louis Jackson," Clinton stated on the ceremony. "And God is not achieved with him but."

Rev. Jesse Jackson waves as he seems on stage in the course of the 2024 Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago, August 19, 2024.

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Jackson was the recipient of quite a few different awards all through his lifetime, together with the NAACP President's Award and the American Institute for Public Service's Jefferson Award. In 2021, Jackson obtained France's highest order of advantage, the Commander of the Legion of Honor.

In later years, Jackson was a vocal proponent for the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He was additionally concerned in the UK's Operation Black Vote to advertise minority participation in British elections.

In July 2023, Jackson stepped down as head of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition after greater than 50 years as its head. "We're resigning, we're not retiring," Jackson stated on the time, vowing to proceed preventing for social justice causes.