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The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a major figure in the US civil rights movement and a longtime force in Democratic politics, has died at the age of 84.
In a statement, his family described him as a lifelong advocate for people who were “oppressed, voiceless, and overlooked,” saying he dedicated his life to justice and equality and urging others to continue the causes he fought for. No cause of death was announced.
Jackson had lived for more than a decade with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a degenerative neurological condition. He was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and had also been hospitalized twice with Covid in recent years.
A prominent national leader since the 1960s, Jackson was closely connected to Martin Luther King Jr and became one of the best-known civil rights activists in the country. He later helped reshape the Democratic party by pushing Black political influence from the sidelines into the party’s mainstream. Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, in 1984 and 1988, mounting a particularly strong campaign in 1988 that expanded the party’s coalition and helped pave the way for future candidates, including Barack Obama.
Born on 8 October 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson grew up under segregation and became politically active early. At Sterling high school, an all-Black school, he was class president and a standout athlete. He earned a football scholarship to the University of Illinois in 1959, and was even offered an opportunity with the Chicago White Sox, but chose to prioritize education.
One defining moment came when he returned home from college and was refused access to the whites-only public library. In July 1960, he joined seven other Black students in a peaceful protest at the Greenville library. The group, later known as the “Greenville Eight,” was arrested, but a judge ultimately ruled they had the right to use the public institution. The library system was integrated later that year.
Jackson later transferred to North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, where he played quarterback, became student body president, and continued organizing sit-ins during the civil rights era. He studied sociology and built a reputation as a skilled leader, crediting his athletic background for teaching him strategy, discipline, and teamwork.
During college he met Jacqueline Brown, whom he married in 1962. They had five children. He later had a sixth child, Ashley, during an affair in the early 2000s.
Jackson first met King in the early 1960s and soon came under his mentorship. In 1964, he enrolled at Chicago Theological Seminary while continuing his activism. After witnessing television coverage of the violent attack on civil rights marchers in Selma on “Bloody Sunday,” he traveled there to join the movement. King, impressed by his leadership, recruited him into the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Jackson became deeply involved in Operation Breadbasket, an SCLC initiative focused on economic justice. The program used boycotts and negotiations to pressure companies into hiring more Black workers. Jackson rose to become its national director in 1967 and was ordained as a minister the following year.
In April 1968, Jackson was present in Memphis when King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, an event that haunted him for decades. He later spoke repeatedly about the trauma of watching a leader committed to nonviolence and love killed in an act of hatred.
After leaving the SCLC in 1971, Jackson founded People United to Save Humanity (Push), which promoted education, job training, and corporate diversity in hiring. He later expanded his work through the National Rainbow Coalition, which became a centerpiece of his political vision: a broad alliance of Black voters, working-class Americans, and marginalized communities.
Jackson entered presidential politics in 1984, becoming the second Black candidate after Shirley Chisholm to run a nationwide campaign for the Democratic nomination. Though he lost to Walter Mondale, his campaign drew national attention and helped energize progressive and minority voters. In 1988, he ran again and performed strongly, but lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis.
His organizing efforts eventually merged into the Rainbow Push Coalition, a multiracial civil rights group focused on economic and educational opportunity. The organization has provided millions of dollars in scholarships and supported thousands of families facing foreclosure.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
Even into the later decades of his life, Jackson remained active in political and civil rights debates, from the election of Donald Trump to the rise of Black Lives Matter. During the Covid pandemic, he spoke out against racial disparities in health outcomes, arguing that inequality rooted in centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination was being reflected in who suffered most.
Jackson also frequently returned to King’s belief in building show-of-force coalitions across racial and cultural lines, warning against narrow nationalism and stressing that progress required constant pressure. He argued that justice did not arrive automatically, it had to be fought for, even in the face of backlash.
