Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and former presidential candidate, dies at 84

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” his family said.

“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 honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”

He died peacefully surrounded by his family on Tuesday morning, the family said in their statement. Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, six children and multiple grandchildren.

The civil rights leader spent decades in the public eye fighting to end racial and class divisions in America.

A protege of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson fought on the front lines of the battle against Jim Crow segregation laws as a college student. He stood out for his rousing speeches, radical ideas and passion for racial equality. Jackson would become a key figure in the civil rights movement that pressed for broader economic opportunities for Black people through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, [founded by MLK Jr. in 1957] and more recently, his organization the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

Jackson eventually transitioned into politics. In 1984 and 1988, he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, winning multiple primaries and surpassing expectations each time. He based his campaigns on expanded equality for various racial minority groups, the working class and women.  [He was one of the first major leaders to suggest giving reparations to descendants of black slaves, and incorporated reparations into his platform during his presidential runs].

Later, Jackson served as U.S. special envoy to Africa in the 1990s. He also acted as “shadow senator” for Washington, D.C., a role in which he lobbied for the district’s statehood.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Jackson also negotiated the release of dozens of international hostages and prisoners, and became a vocal supporter of voting and LGBTQ rights.

He was no stranger to controversy. During the 1984 presidential primary, he referred to Jews with the derogatory slur “Hymies” and called New York “Hymietown” in remarks he at first denied and later apologized for. … [(Jewish activists had marched at Selma, helped fund the NAACP, and had supported the push for civil rights).

…While Jackson had largely been absent from the political and civil rights main stage in recent years, he had taken every opportunity to renew pushes for equality.

“If we played the big game, and the rules are not fair, and goals not clear and public, we would protest, but in politics we seem to make it alright, it’s not alright,” said Jackson in a 2018 podcast appearance. “We want a system that’s fair, and fairly applied. Americans want and deserve an even playing field with equal protection under the law, equal access and fairness.”

His family said Tuesday that it was his “unwavering commitment to justice, equality and human rights” that helped shape “a global movement for freedom and dignity.”

“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 statement said.

On March 7, 1965, a day that would become known as Bloody Sunday, Jackson watched on television as club-wielding Alabama state troopers fired tear gas and charged at hundreds of nonviolent demonstrators who had just crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The demonstrators were part of the historic marches from Selma to the Alabama capital of Montgomery to fight for Black civil and voting rights.

A day after witnessing the violence on television, Jackson organized a caravan of seminary students to drive down to Alabama and join King in the Selma-to-Montgomery marches. …

“In Selma, America was reborn, democracy redefined, human rights redefined. The fruits of Selma are bountiful. And so today, we say to all of America, America won. One flag, one nation,” Jackson said at a commemoration of the march in April 2000, drawing roaring applause. “Not the flag of sedition and slavery and segregation. But one America, one flag.”

Impressed by Jackson’s passion and organizational abilities during the marches, King gave him a staff position at the SCLC, the civil rights organization that King led until his death. Just three courses short of finishing his studies at the seminary, Jackson dropped out to pursue a full-time career in civil rights. Though he still became an ordained Baptist minister in 1968.

In 1966, he was placed in charge of the Chicago branch of Operation Breadbasket, an SCLC initiative that monitored white companies’ treatment of Black people and organized boycotts calling for fair hiring practices.

While Jackson was seen by some in the SCLC as a “loose cannon” who worked too independently of others in the organization, his leadership was integral to the Chicago branch’s success. Under Jackson, the Operation Breadbasket branch won 2,000 new jobs worth $15 million a year in new income to the Black community.

He was promoted to national director of Operation Breadbasket in 1968, the same year King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Jackson was a floor below King when he was shot dead at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, though he told reporters that the civil rights leader died in his arms, a claim that several King aides have disputed.  …

Jackson was embroiled in controversy after the assassination, with other SCLC leaders accusing him of using the organization and King’s death for self-promotion.   Ralph Abernathy, King’s successor as chairman of the SCLC, told The New York Times in 1977, “I hope God has forgiven [Jackson.]”

In 1971, Jackson formally resigned from the SCLC and founded Operation PUSH, or People United to Serve Humanity — his own Chicago-based civil rights organization that aimed to improve the economic conditions of Black communities across the U.S. Twenty-five years later, it would merge with the National Rainbow Coalition, Jackson’s other civil rights organization that sought equal rights for the working class, women and racial minority groups.

Jackson also advocated for the LGBTQ community when few prominent Democrats dared to do so, becoming the first speaker at a Democratic National Convention to mention gay and lesbian Americans.

He pushed for revised voting regulations and in 2021, he and others were arrested outside the U.S. Capitol during a demonstration calling for the end to the filibuster.

[In 2021, Jackson called for an end to the filibuster so the Senate could pass bills with a simple majority  to get a Democrat-proposed voter bill passed that would require the following for federal elections:
-automatic voter registration at certain government agencies nationwide, with an opt‑out option
-allow for same‑day voter registration (including on Election Day) for federal elections
-make mandatory at least 15 days of early in‑person voting and expanded no‑excuse absentee/mail voting for federal elections
-make Election Day a federal holiday and setting standards to reduce long lines and ensure enough polling places and drop boxes
-limit voter‑roll purges
-and restoration of voting rights for people with felony convictions once they complete their sentence].

“Black and Brown people are the base of the party. We’re not the bottom. We’re the foundation,” Jackson told the crowd, according to The Washington Post. “If we lose, they lose. If we lose, democracy loses. If we lose, Democrats lose. If we lose, the nation loses.”