Civil rights activist and two-time Democrat presidential candidate Jesse Jackson died Tuesday. He was 84.
Jackson’s family announced his death on Tuesday morning. A cause of death was not provided, but Jackson was placed on life support in November after he was hospitalized over a neurological condition called progressive supranuclear palsy. In 2017, Jackson announced that he had Parkinson’s disease.
“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,” his family said. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.”
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 8, 1941. He graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in 1964. Soon after, he began working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was heavily involved in King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackson was with King in Memphis in 1968 when he was assassinated.
Working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jackson ran “Operation Breadbasket” in Chicago. The program was meant to create economic opportunities for black people and would encourage boycotts of companies that did not “negotiate” for a “more equitable employment practice.”
He left the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 after he was suspended for “administrative improprieties and repeated acts of violation of organizational policy.”
Jackson ran for president in both 1984 and 1988, seeking the Democratic nomination. He embraced far-left policies and opposed the agenda of former President Ronald Reagan. He won about 18% of the vote in 1984 and won 11 states four years later. His 1984 campaign hit a snag after he used a slur to refer to Jewish people and New York City.
Throughout the 1990s, Jackson was elected to lobby for statehood for Washington, D.C. Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996, which grew out of his 1984 presidential campaign that united minorities opposed to Reagan’s policies.
In 2000, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Bill Clinton.
In recent years, Jackson has advocated ending the Electoral College and has sharply criticized President Donald Trump. Jackson called Trump a “racist” and a “weapon of mass destruction.”
“The language of Donald Trump has been a source of shame for our nation. Humiliation and untruth,” Jackson said back in 2018. In 2020, Jackson endorsed the presidential campaign of leftist Bernie Sanders.
Reacting to the news of his death, Trump said that he knew Jackson before becoming president and had provided office space for the Rainbow Coalition at his building in New York.
“I knew him well, long before becoming President. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.’ He was very gregarious — Someone who truly loved people! Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand. He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed!” Trump added.
He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, Santita Jackson, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Jonathan Luther Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, and Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson Jr. He had another daughter, Ashley Jackson, from another woman.
A public ceremony for Jackson will be held in Chicago.
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