Jesse Jackson obit

Jesse Jackson Dies: Civil Rights Leader Was 84

 He was not on the list.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights activist and preacher who fought tirelessly for decades, has died aged 84.

A statement from his family said Jackson “died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family.” A cause of death has not been given. Jackson was previously diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity,” said the statement. “A tireless change agent, he elevated the voices of the voiceless — from his Presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilizing millions to register to vote-leaving an indelible mark on history.” The full statement can be read below.

Born in 1941, Jackson began his career as a young protege of Martin Luther King Junior. Through a political and theological career across the decades, he maintained his position as a civil rights leader and pillar for the Black community.

He founded the Rainbow/PUSH organization and even launched a presidential campaign against Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, placing third for the democratic nomination. He tried again in 1988, placing second. He was elected to the senate in 1990 for the District of Columbia, serving one term as shadow delegate.

Jackson also hosted a TV show, Both Sides with Jesse Jackson, on CNN from 1992 to 2000. He remained in the spotlight until close to his death and will always be regarded as one of the most influential African-American activists of the century.

Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; their children Santita, Jesse Jr., Jonathan, Yusef, Jacqueline; daughter Ashley Jackson, and grandchildren.

He was a  civil rights activist, politician and ordained Baptist minister. A protégé of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, he became one of the most prominent civil rights leaders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. From 1991 to 1997, he served as a shadow delegate and shadow senator for the District of Columbia. He was the father of U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson and former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson began his activism in the 1960s and founded the organizations that later merged to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Expanding his work into international affairs in the 1980s, he became a vocal critic of the Reagan administration and launched a presidential campaign in 1984. Initially viewed as a fringe candidate, he finished third for the Democratic nomination behind former Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart. He continued his activism and mounted a second presidential bid in 1988, finishing as the runner‑up to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

 

Jackson did not seek the presidency again, but in 1990 he was elected as the District of Columbia's shadow senator, serving one term during the Bush and Clinton administrations. Although initially critical of President Bill Clinton, he later became a supporter. Jackson hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000. A critic of police brutality, the Republican Party, and conservative policies, he was widely regarded as one of the most influential African‑American activists of his era.

Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina to Helen Burns (1923–2015), an 18-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Louis Robinson (1908–1997). His ancestry includes Cherokee, enslaved African-Americans, Irish plantation owners, and a Confederate sheriff.

As a child, Jesse Jackson was taunted by other children about his out‑of‑wedlock birth, and he said these experiences helped motivate him to succeed. Living under Jim Crow segregation laws, he was taught to go to the back of the bus and to use separate water fountains—practices he accepted until the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. He attended a racially segregated school, Sterling High School in Greenville, where he was elected student class president, finished 10th in his class, and earned letters in baseball, football, and basketball.

After graduating from high school in 1959, Jackson rejected a contract from a minor-league professional baseball team so that he could attend the University of Illinois on a football scholarship. After his second semester at the predominantly white college, he transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically black university in Greensboro, North Carolina. Accounts of the reasons for the transfer differed, though Jackson said he changed schools because racial prejudice prevented him from playing quarterback and limited his participation on a competitive public‑speaking team.

At A&T, Jackson played quarterback and was elected student body president. He became active in local civil-rights protests against segregated libraries, theaters, and restaurants. He graduated with a B.S. degree in sociology in 1964, then attended the Chicago Theological Seminary on a scholarship. He left the seminary in 1966, three classes short of earning his master's degree, to focus full-time on the civil rights movement. He was ordained a minister in 1968 and was awarded a Master of Divinity degree by Chicago Theological Seminary in 2000, based on his previously earned credits and his subsequent work and life experience.

Jackson's influence extended to international matters in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983, he traveled to Syria to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, who was being held by the Syrian government. Goodman had been shot down over Lebanon while on a mission to bomb Syrian positions in that country. After Jackson made a dramatic personal appeal to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Goodman was released. The Reagan administration was initially skeptical about Jackson's trip, but after Jackson secured Goodman's release, Reagan welcomed Jackson and Goodman to the White House on January 4, 1984. This helped to boost Jackson's popularity as an American patriot and served as a springboard for his 1984 presidential run. In June 1984 Jackson negotiated the release of 22 Americans being held in Cuba after an invitation by Cuban president Fidel Castro. On the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Jackson made a trip to Iraq to plead with Saddam Hussein for the release of foreign nationals held there as a "human shield", securing the release of several British and 20 American individuals.

In 1997, Jackson traveled to Kenya to meet with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi as United States President Bill Clinton's special envoy for democracy to promote free and fair elections. In April 1999, during the Kosovo War and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, he traveled to Belgrade to negotiate the release of three U.S. POWs captured on the Macedonian border while patrolling with a UN peacekeeping unit. Along with Serbian American congressman Rod Blagojevich, he met with then-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, who later agreed to release the three men. Jackson's negotiation was not sanctioned by the Clinton administration.

In August 2005 Jackson traveled to Venezuela to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez after controversial remarks by televangelist Pat Robertson which implied that Chávez should be assassinated. Jackson condemned Robertson's remarks as being immoral. After meeting with Chávez and addressing the Venezuelan Parliament, Jackson said there was no evidence that Venezuela posed a threat to the U.S. He also met representatives from the Venezuelan African and indigenous communities. In 2013, Jackson attended Chávez's funeral. He told Wolf Blitzer that "democracies mature" and incorrectly said that the first 15 U.S. presidents owned slaves (John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan did not have slaves). Jackson said that the U.S. had come very far since that era. In 2005, he was enlisted as part of the United Kingdom's Operation Black Vote, a campaign Simon Woolley ran to encourage more of Britain's ethnic minorities to vote in political elections ahead of the 2005 General Election.