CHICAGO — The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, died Tuesday at 84, his daughter Santita Jackson said. Santita Jackson confirmed her father died at home in Chicago and said he had a rare neurological disorder, according to a family statement posted online.
Jackson spent decades pressing for voting rights, jobs, education and health care and used boycotts, lawsuits and negotiations to push corporations to diversify, the AP has reported. Through Operation Breadbasket and later Operation PUSH, which became the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he pushed for hiring and economic opportunities for Black Americans, the organization said.
The Jackson family said in the online statement that he was “a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.” Fellow activist the Rev. Al Sharpton called Jackson “a movement unto himself,” saying Jackson taught that protest must have purpose and that justice is daily work, Sharpton said in a statement.
Jackson rose from Greenville, South Carolina, to national prominence. He was born Oct. 8, 1941, and became active in the Civil Rights Movement while a student at North Carolina A&T, the AP has reported. He worked with King in the 1960s, helped lead Operation Breadbasket in Chicago and was present in Memphis shortly before King was slain; Jackson has said he was with King when the leader was killed and has described the assassination as a driving force in his life.
Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, winning 13 primaries and caucuses in 1988 and four in 1984, accomplishments he said helped expand possibilities for women and people of color. He continued to protest racial injustice into the era of Black Lives Matter and made public appearances as recently as 2024, including at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and at a City Council meeting, the AP reported. In his final months he received around-the-clock care and lost the ability to speak, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. told the AP in October.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
