The Rev. Jesse Jackson, renowned civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and pioneering political figure who twice ran for the U.S. presidency, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 84, his family announced, reports Baltimore Chronicle via Guardian. Jackson’s family described him as “a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.” They urged the public to honor his memory by continuing the work for justice, equality, and love that he championed. He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Jackson, whom he married in 1962, and their six children.
In recent years, Jackson faced numerous health challenges. In November 2025, he was hospitalized in Chicago for complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative disease he had been managing for a decade, according to a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights organization he founded. The family later clarified that Jackson was stable and breathing unassisted, and he was not on life support. He was released from the hospital shortly after and received additional care following several infections consistent with PSP progression.
Jackson had previously disclosed in 2017 that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but the November 2025 update confirmed the PSP diagnosis from earlier that year.
Born on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson grew up in a poor sharecropping family in the segregated South. A gifted student and athlete, he initially received offers for a minor league baseball contract and a Big Ten football scholarship, but chose to study at the University of Illinois before transferring to North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university. He began theological studies and soon joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where he was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1968.
At age 24, Jackson became head of the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, the SCLC’s economic activism arm, and was named its national director a year later. He also co-founded the Chicago Freedom Movement to promote open housing and school desegregation. Jackson participated in seminal civil rights events, including the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, and was with Dr. King when he was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
Three years later, Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save/Serve Humanity) to advance economic opportunities for Black communities and successfully advocated for affirmative action policies in major corporations. In the 1980s, he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, placing third in 1984 and second in 1988, winning 12 primaries and caucuses and receiving 6.9 million votes, marking the most successful runs by a Black candidate before Barack Obama.
He later formed the National Rainbow Coalition to amplify minority political voices, merging it with Operation PUSH in 1996 to create Rainbow/PUSH, which he led until stepping down in July 2023. Jackson also served as the shadow delegate for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. Internationally, he negotiated the release of hostages, including Navy pilot Robert Goodman in Lebanon in 1984 and three Americans in Yugoslavia in 1999.
Jackson received numerous accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 2000, the NAACP President’s Award, France’s Commander of the Legion of Honor in 2021, and the Jefferson Award for public service. In later years, he advocated for the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and supported minority participation initiatives in the United Kingdom through Operation Black Vote.
Jackson’s family and supporters remember him as a transformative figure whose dedication to civil rights, social justice, and political activism shaped American history and inspired generations worldwide.
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