(Bloomberg) — Jesse Jackson, one of the most prominent US civil rights leaders of the 20th century who ran credible campaigns for the White House two decades before America elected its first Black president, has died. He was 84.
He died on Tuesday, surrounded by his family, CBS News reported, citing a statement from Jackson’s family. He disclosed in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s disease.
An acolyte of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson was present when King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968. “We were traumatized to see him lying there soaked in blood, 39 years old,” Jackson recalled a half-century later in an interview with the Guardian. “He’d done so much to make America better, built bridges, sacrificed his livelihood, sacrificed his life.”
“America loathes marchers but loves martyrs,” Jackson wrote. “The bullet in Memphis made Dr. King a martyr for the ages.”
Though he didn’t succeed King in an official capacity, Jackson carried on King’s struggle for justice and equality in highly visible ways.
Jackson ran the Chicago office of Operation Breadbasket, the economic empowerment arm of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1971, after a break with SCLC leaders over his management style, the flamboyant Jackson, known for his soaring oratory and attraction to the spotlight, formed his own civil rights organization, People United to Serve Humanity, also called Operation PUSH.
He later created the National Rainbow Coalition, a multiracial political group, before merging the two outfits in the mid-1990s to form the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a nonprofit organization that sought political and economic power for minorities. He stepped down as its president in 2023.
Presidential Runs
Jackson was the second Black Democrat to mount a serious run for the nation’s highest office, following the 1972 bid by Shirley Chisholm, a US representative.
In his first campaign for the Democratic nomination, in 1984, Jackson won 18% of primary votes, finishing third behind Gary Hart and eventual nominee Walter Mondale. In 1988, he captured 29% of the Democratic vote and won 13 primaries and caucuses, finishing behind only Michael Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts.
His speeches at both conventions showed his gift for soaring oratory. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,” he said in his 1984 address. In 1988, he said, “This campaign has shown that politics need not be marketed by politicians, packaged by pollsters and pundits. Politics can be a moral arena where people come together to find common ground.”
In 1990 Jackson served as an unpaid, nonvoting shadow senator from the District of Columbia. His role was primarily to lobby for statehood for DC so it could gain voting representatives in Congress.
A Baptist minister, Jackson used rhyme to make his remarks memorable as he advocated for equal employment and business opportunities for Black Americans. “We have allowed death to change its name from Southern rope to Northern dope,” he said. “Too many Black youths have been victimized by pushing dope into their veins instead of hope into their brains.”
He popularized the 1950s poem “I am — Somebody,” which begins: “I am — Somebody. I may be poor, but I am — Somebody.”
‘Hymietown’ Comment
Some of his words landed Jackson in hot water. He drew criticism in 1984 for using the term “Hymie” to describe Jews and “Hymietown” in reference to New York City. “However innocent and unintended, it was wrong,” Jackson said after initially denying using those words in a private conversation.
In 2008, he apologized for a crudely phrased comment he made about Barack Obama, who was on his way to winning the presidency. The financial practices of Jackson’s organizations also came under scrutiny over the years.
Beyond pressing for political change, Jackson pressured large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. and BP Plc to improve minority hiring and business opportunities and urged pension funds to make loans in low-income communities.
He earned international attention by winning the release of Americans held by hostile foreign governments, often acting as a self-appointed envoy who operated without the blessing of the White House or State Department. In 1984, Jackson negotiated the release of almost two dozen Americans held in Cuba following discussions with President Fidel Castro.
President Bill Clinton made Jackson special envoy to Africa to promote democracy and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
‘Longing for Respect’
Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a 16-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Robinson. When he was about a year old, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who later adopted him.
“I think being born out of wedlock bothered him disproportionately to the way it did anyone else we grew up with,” Noah Ryan Robinson, Jackson’s half brother, told the New York Times in the 1980s. “The thing that drives him is a subliminal longing for respect and recognition that he is somebody.”
Jackson attended a racially segregated high school in Greenville, where he was elected class president and starred in baseball, football and basketball.
After attending the University of Illinois on a football scholarship, he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, in Greensboro. He studied sociology, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1964.
Jackson attended the Chicago Theological Seminary, dropping out in 1966 to focus full-time on the civil rights movement. He was ordained a minister in 1968.
During the 1990s, he hosted the news program Both Sides With Jesse Jackson on CNN.
Although Parkinson’s disease took a noticeable toll on his body, Jackson continued to press for social change.
Shareholder Proposal
He attended shareholder meetings at Citigroup Inc. and other banks to push for a proposal that the billions banks paid in fines for subprime mortgages be given to Americans who lost homes or suffered in other ways during the 2008 financial crisis.
He lobbied the auto industry to increase opportunities for Black Americans among suppliers, dealers and in the companies’ management ranks. During the Covid pandemic Jackson drew attention to the disproportionate burden borne by minorities and the poorest Americans.
Jackson and his wife Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, his college sweetheart, had five children, two of whom were elected to Congress representing Illinois. Jonathan Jackson is a current congressman. Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned his seat in 2012 and served almost 18 months in federal prison for conspiring to defraud his reelection campaign.
Their other children are Santita, a singer and political commentator; Yusef; and Jacqueline. Jackson said in 2001 that he also had a daughter, Ashley, out of wedlock with Karin Stanford, a consultant with his Rainbow/PUSH coalition.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) — Jesse Jackson, one of the most prominent US civil rights leaders of the 20th century who ran credible campaigns for the White House two decades before America elected its first Black president, has died. He was 84.
He died on Tuesday, surrounded by his family, CBS News reported, citing a statement from Jackson’s family. He disclosed in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s disease.
An acolyte of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson was present when King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968. “We were traumatized to see him lying there soaked in blood, 39 years old,” Jackson recalled a half-century later in an interview with the Guardian. “He’d done so much to make America better, built bridges, sacrificed his livelihood, sacrificed his life.”
“America loathes marchers but loves martyrs,” Jackson wrote. “The bullet in Memphis made Dr. King a martyr for the ages.”
Though he didn’t succeed King in an official capacity, Jackson carried on King’s struggle for justice and equality in highly visible ways.
Jackson ran the Chicago office of Operation Breadbasket, the economic empowerment arm of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1971, after a break with SCLC leaders over his management style, the flamboyant Jackson, known for his soaring oratory and attraction to the spotlight, formed his own civil rights organization, People United to Serve Humanity, also called Operation PUSH.
He later created the National Rainbow Coalition, a multiracial political group, before merging the two outfits in the mid-1990s to form the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a nonprofit organization that sought political and economic power for minorities. He stepped down as its president in 2023.
Presidential Runs
Jackson was the second Black Democrat to mount a serious run for the nation’s highest office, following the 1972 bid by Shirley Chisholm, a US representative.
In his first campaign for the Democratic nomination, in 1984, Jackson won 18% of primary votes, finishing third behind Gary Hart and eventual nominee Walter Mondale. In 1988, he captured 29% of the Democratic vote and won 13 primaries and caucuses, finishing behind only Michael Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts.
His speeches at both conventions showed his gift for soaring oratory. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,” he said in his 1984 address. In 1988, he said, “This campaign has shown that politics need not be marketed by politicians, packaged by pollsters and pundits. Politics can be a moral arena where people come together to find common ground.”
In 1990 Jackson served as an unpaid, nonvoting shadow senator from the District of Columbia. His role was primarily to lobby for statehood for DC so it could gain voting representatives in Congress.
A Baptist minister, Jackson used rhyme to make his remarks memorable as he advocated for equal employment and business opportunities for Black Americans. “We have allowed death to change its name from Southern rope to Northern dope,” he said. “Too many Black youths have been victimized by pushing dope into their veins instead of hope into their brains.”
He popularized the 1950s poem “I am — Somebody,” which begins: “I am — Somebody. I may be poor, but I am — Somebody.”
‘Hymietown’ Comment
Some of his words landed Jackson in hot water. He drew criticism in 1984 for using the term “Hymie” to describe Jews and “Hymietown” in reference to New York City. “However innocent and unintended, it was wrong,” Jackson said after initially denying using those words in a private conversation.
In 2008, he apologized for a crudely phrased comment he made about Barack Obama, who was on his way to winning the presidency. The financial practices of Jackson’s organizations also came under scrutiny over the years.
Beyond pressing for political change, Jackson pressured large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. and BP Plc to improve minority hiring and business opportunities and urged pension funds to make loans in low-income communities.
He earned international attention by winning the release of Americans held by hostile foreign governments, often acting as a self-appointed envoy who operated without the blessing of the White House or State Department. In 1984, Jackson negotiated the release of almost two dozen Americans held in Cuba following discussions with President Fidel Castro.
President Bill Clinton made Jackson special envoy to Africa to promote democracy and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
‘Longing for Respect’
Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a 16-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Robinson. When he was about a year old, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who later adopted him.
“I think being born out of wedlock bothered him disproportionately to the way it did anyone else we grew up with,” Noah Ryan Robinson, Jackson’s half brother, told the New York Times in the 1980s. “The thing that drives him is a subliminal longing for respect and recognition that he is somebody.”
Jackson attended a racially segregated high school in Greenville, where he was elected class president and starred in baseball, football and basketball.
After attending the University of Illinois on a football scholarship, he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, in Greensboro. He studied sociology, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1964.
Jackson attended the Chicago Theological Seminary, dropping out in 1966 to focus full-time on the civil rights movement. He was ordained a minister in 1968.
During the 1990s, he hosted the news program Both Sides With Jesse Jackson on CNN.
Although Parkinson’s disease took a noticeable toll on his body, Jackson continued to press for social change.
Shareholder Proposal
He attended shareholder meetings at Citigroup Inc. and other banks to push for a proposal that the billions banks paid in fines for subprime mortgages be given to Americans who lost homes or suffered in other ways during the 2008 financial crisis.
He lobbied the auto industry to increase opportunities for Black Americans among suppliers, dealers and in the companies’ management ranks. During the Covid pandemic Jackson drew attention to the disproportionate burden borne by minorities and the poorest Americans.
Jackson and his wife Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, his college sweetheart, had five children, two of whom were elected to Congress representing Illinois. Jonathan Jackson is a current congressman. Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned his seat in 2012 and served almost 18 months in federal prison for conspiring to defraud his reelection campaign.
Their other children are Santita, a singer and political commentator; Yusef; and Jacqueline. Jackson said in 2001 that he also had a daughter, Ashley, out of wedlock with Karin Stanford, a consultant with his Rainbow/PUSH coalition.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
