The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime civil rights activist and former presidential candidate who garnered controversy over his political activism and private misconduct, has died at age 84.
The Jackson family released a statement announcing that the Baptist minister died on Tuesday morning, being survived by his wife, six children and multiple grandchildren.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the neglected world wide,” stated the Jackson family.
“We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became a part of our clan. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted tens of millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
The Rev. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Stonecrest, Georgia, called Jackson “my superhero” in an emailed statement.
“While other boys my age desired to be Michael Jordan, I desired to be Jesse Jackson,” Bryant added. “His poise, passion and purpose was my blueprint. In sixth grade I wore a Jackson for president button on daily basis and have not turned back since.”
Jesse Louis Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. The son of a single teenage mother, Jackson was an honor student in highschool and later earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina in 1964. He accomplished graduate work on the Chicago Theological Seminary within the Nineteen Sixties and later received an honorary master’s degree from the institution.
Jackson first engaged as an activist while a student at CTS when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. got here to Chicago to launch a northern chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
While Jackson rose through the ranks of the movement, he and King didn’t all the time get along, in response to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute at Stanford.
“Despite King’s praises of Jackson’s work, just a few days before King’s assassination he criticized Jackson for following his own agenda fairly than supporting the group,” explained the Institute.
“Jackson, hurt by his mentor’s disapproval, told him, ‘Everything’s going to be all right’ … King angrily replied that every thing was not going to be alright and that he needed Jackson and all the SCLC staff to work toward a typical vision for America.”
The two eventually reconciled. Jackson was talking with King on the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when the famous civil rights leader was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Like King, Jackson was ordained a Baptist minister. He left the SCLC in 1971 to found his own civil rights advocacy group, People United to Save Humanity.
Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984, which merged with PUSH within the Nineties to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He would also launch a minority economic opportunity group called the Wall Street Project.
In 1984 and 1988, Jackson launched campaigns to change into the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Though he failed each times, each effort received substantial support.
“Until 1984, no black person had ever launched a significant campaign for President of the United States,” wrote Kimberly Anne Powell of Northern Illinois University in 1989.
“In 1984 Jesse Jackson’s campaign was one in all symbolic protest. In 1988 his campaign was a serious bid for the presidency, which challenged the established stereotype of presidential candidates.”
In January 2001, Jackson admitted having had an extramarital affair with a Rainbow/PUSH staffer, which resulted in him fathering a baby.
“This isn’t any time for evasions, denials or alibis,” stated Jackson on the time, as reported by ABC News. “I fully accept responsibility and I’m truly sorry for my actions.”
Jackson went on to state that he would offer “emotional and financial” support to the kid.
Another family scandal hit in 2013 when his son, former member of Congress Jesse Louis Jackson Jr., pled guilty to conspiring to defraud his reelection campaigns of roughly $750,000, which he used to pay for private expenses, like jewelry, fur capes, celebrity memorabilia, and a house renovation project. He received a 30-month sentence.
In November 2017, Jackson announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, having seen early symptoms of the neurological illness a few years earlier.
“After a battery of tests, my physicians identified the difficulty as Parkinson’s disease, a disease that bested my father,” Jackson said on the time, as quoted by CNN, adding that the “recognition of the results of this disease on me has been painful.”
In April, Jackson was reportedly diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a neurological disorder related to Parkinson’s that also hinders mobility and speech.
Because of his health issues, Jackson reduced his public appearances, though he was a delegate on the 2024 Democratic National Convention, representing Illinois, where he was honored by attendees.
The then-82-year-old Jackson, who got here on stage in a wheelchair, didn’t address the 2024 DNC. Rather, he gave two thumbs as much as the cheering crowd.
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