US Civil Rights icon – Jesse Jackson dies at 84

World

American Civil Rights icon - Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson Sr., has passed away – aged 84.

His family announced his passing in a statement posted on Instagram, confirming that he died peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones. The Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organisation he founded and led for decades, also confirmed the news.

"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.," the family statement read. "Our father was a servant leader - not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world. We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by."

A cause of death was not immediately given. Jackson had been battling serious health challenges in his final years, including Parkinson's disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2017. This gradually robbed him of his famously powerful voice and his ability to walk. He was hospitalised for COVID-19 in 2021 alongside his wife, Jacqueline. In April 2025, he was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare neurodegenerative condition that further affected his mobility and swallowing. He was hospitalised in November 2025 for cardiopulmonary complications related to PSP and was transferred out of intensive care before being released from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago later that month.

Jesse Louis Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a 16-year-old high school student, and Noah Louis Robinson, her 33-year-old married neighbour. His heritage was rich and complex, encompassing Cherokee, African-American, Irish, and other ancestries.

When Jesse was barely a year old, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a postal worker who would later formally adopt Jesse and give him his name. Despite the stability his stepfather provided, Jesse grew up under the heavy shadow of Jim Crow segregation — walking miles past the whites-only school to reach his own segregated one, riding in the back of the bus, and drinking from separate water fountains.

Rather than break his spirit, these experiences lit a fire in him. As a child, Jackson was also taunted by peers about being born out of wedlock, and he has spoken openly about how those painful experiences fuelled his lifelong determination to succeed and to champion the dignity of those whom society overlooked.

In 1960, the teenage Jackson led what became known as the "Greenville Eight" - a group of students who staged a peaceful "read-in" at Greenville's whites-only public library. They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. It was his first act of organised civil disobedience, and it would not be his last.

He was a gifted athlete and scholar. After graduating high school, he turned down an offer to play professional baseball from the Chicago White Sox, instead accepting a football scholarship to the University of Illinois. Uncomfortable with the racial climate there, he later transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, where he graduated with a degree in sociology and deepened his involvement in the civil rights movement.

He began postgraduate Divinity Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary but left to join the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, participating in the historic and dangerous Selma-to-Montgomery marches. King recognised Jackson's extraordinary talent immediately, and appointed him Director of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago - the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) - with a mission to expand economic opportunities for Black Americans through targeted boycotts and negotiations with businesses. In June 1968, two months after King's assassination, Jackson was ordained a Baptist minister.

One of the most defining and debated moments of Jackson's life came on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Jackson was among those present when Dr. King was shot and killed on the motel balcony. The events of that night would follow Jackson for the rest of his life, simultaneously cementing his bond with King's legacy and creating controversy about the role he played in the aftermath.

"Shot, killed in cold blood," Jackson later recalled. "All I can remember is some voice saying, 'One bullet cannot kill a movement. We must keep going.'"  And keep going he did. King's death did not diminish Jackson - it transformed him into one of the central torchbearers of the civil rights movement for the next half-century.

In 1971, after a period of tension with the SCLC, Jackson resigned to found People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). The organisation focused on improving the economic conditions of Black communities, supporting Black-owned businesses, and expanding access to education and opportunity. Through weekly radio broadcasts and community organising, PUSH became a powerful platform for Jackson's message.

In 1984, Jackson launched his first campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, simultaneously founding the National Rainbow Coalition — a bold and historic alliance bringing together Black Americans, white Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and LGBTQ people under one political banner. It was a movement unlike anything American politics had seen.

"Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow — red, yellow, brown, Black and White — and we're all precious in God's sight," Jackson famously declared.

In that first presidential race, he won more than 18% of the primary vote and carried several primaries and caucuses. Four years later, in 1988, he ran again — this time winning 11 primaries and caucuses and finishing second in the Democratic race behind eventual nominee Michael Dukakis. He was widely regarded as one of the most compelling and gifted communicators of any candidate on the debate stage.

"It turned out he not only held his own; he often won those debates," one political analyst later noted.

His Rainbow Coalition, which eventually merged with PUSH to form Rainbow/PUSH, helped reshape the Democratic Party toward a more progressive, multicultural identity — laying groundwork that would eventually make possible the rise of Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States.

Jackson's activism extended well beyond America's borders. He was a persistent and often effective diplomatic envoy in crises where official channels had stalled. In 1984, he secured the release of captured American pilot Lieutenant Robert Goodman from Syria. In 1990, ahead of the Gulf War, he negotiated the release of American and British hostages held in Iraq. He also intervened in conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, and Cuba, and was a consistent voice against apartheid in South Africa.

From 1991 to 1997, he served as a shadow Senator for the District of Columbia, advocating for D.C. Statehood. He hosted the CNN programme Both Sides with Jesse Jackson from 1992 to 2000, and received dozens of honorary degrees from universities around the world.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour, recognising his decades of service to democracy and human rights.

Jackson's legacy is not without its controversies. He faced criticism from some of King's aides who believed his ambition sometimes outpaced his selflessness. He was suspended from the SCLC before his departure, accused of using the organisation for personal gain. In 2001, he acknowledged fathering a child outside of his marriage, leading to a brief withdrawal from public life.

Yet even his fiercest critics acknowledged the scale of his contribution. He mobilised millions of Americans to register to vote, fought police brutality across decades, mentored a generation of Black political leaders, and kept the language of justice, dignity, and equality at the centre of American political life during eras when it risked being marginalised entirely.

"He elevated the voices of the voiceless," the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said in its statement. "A tireless change agent, he helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity."

Despite his health challenges, Jackson continued to attend commemorations of key civil rights milestones. As recently as March 2025, he visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 60th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when civil rights marchers were brutally attacked by police — a bridge he had first crossed as a young man alongside Dr. King.

Reverend Jackson is survived by his wife of more than six decades, Jacqueline Brown Jackson, whom he married in 1962; their five children — Santita, Jesse Jr., Jonathan, Yusef, and Jacqueline; daughter Ashley Jackson; and several grandchildren.

His son Jesse Jackson Jr. served as a U.S. Representative from Illinois. His son Jonathan Jackson currently serves as a U.S. Representative from Illinois.

For decades, Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. told audiences that: "I am somebody" - borrowing a phrase that became his signature call. For millions of Americans who had been told they were not, he meant it — and he spent every day of his life proving it.