From Selma to the presidential stage, the fiery preacher sought to “transform the mind of America”
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the impassioned civil rights leader, two-time presidential candidate, and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has died at the age of 84.
His family confirmed that he died peacefully on Tuesday. In recent years, Jackson had battled serious health challenges, including Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurodegenerative disorder.
For more than five decades, Jackson stood at the crossroads of faith, activism and politics — a bridge between the era of Martin Luther King Jr. and the presidency of Barack Obama.
Though he never reached the White House himself, his campaigns and advocacy reshaped American political possibility.
From Greenville to the Movement
Born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson grew up in the segregated South during the height of Jim Crow.
His early life was marked by both hardship and ambition.
A gifted athlete and natural orator, he earned a football scholarship before transferring to North Carolina A&T State University, where he became active in student leadership and the burgeoning civil rights movement.
In 1965, after witnessing the violence against demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, he traveled south and joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
There, he met King and soon became one of the youngest staff members in the organization.
Following King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson sought to carry forward his mentor’s vision.
His role during that tumultuous period drew both admiration and criticism, but it cemented his determination to become a national moral voice.
The Birth of a “Rainbow Coalition”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Jackson expanded his activism beyond traditional civil rights work.
Through Operation Breadbasket and later the Rainbow Coalition, he advocated economic justice, corporate accountability and political empowerment for marginalized communities.
His signature phrase — “Keep hope alive” — became a rallying cry during his groundbreaking presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988.
Running as a Democrat, Jackson built what he called a “rainbow coalition” of Black Americans, Latinos, working-class whites, labor unions and progressive voters.
In 1988, he won nearly seven million primary votes, finishing second in several key contests and demonstrating that a Black candidate could mount a serious national campaign.
While he did not secure the nomination, his campaign laid critical groundwork for future generations of political leaders.
Many historians credit Jackson’s mobilization efforts with accelerating the expansion of Black voter participation nationwide, helping make possible the election of Obama two decades later.
A Moral Force Beyond Office
Though Jackson never held major elected office, he remained a powerful figure in American public life. Presidents consulted him.
Corporations negotiated with him. International leaders met with him during diplomatic interventions in South Africa, Haiti and the Middle East.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
His advocacy extended into Silicon Valley, Wall Street and voting rights campaigns. Even into his late 70s, he remained active in protests and political rallies, speaking out against economic inequality, war and voter suppression.
Controversies and Personal Trials
Jackson’s career was not without turbulence.
His ambition and media savvy sometimes alienated allies.
He faced criticism over past remarks and endured personal controversy, including the public revelation in 2001 that he had fathered a child outside his marriage.
Still, his influence endured. To supporters, he was a tireless advocate who forced institutions to confront inequality. To critics, he was an imperfect messenger with an outsized ego.
To history, he remains one of the most consequential Black political figures of the late 20th century.
A Bridge Between Eras
Jackson occupied a unique place in American history — too late to be the singular heroic symbol of the 1960s, too early to capture the presidency in a changing nation.
Yet his work transformed the Democratic Party’s coalition politics and expanded the imagination of what was possible for Black leadership in America.
He often described his mission not merely as political, but transformational.
“My mission has been to transform the mind of America,” he once said.
In life, Jesse Jackson challenged the country to stitch together what he called a quilt of unity — patches of different communities bound by a common thread. Whether that vision is fully realized remains an open question. But his voice, cadence and call to hope altered the fabric of American politics.
He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, their children and grandchildren.
His rallying cry still echoes:
Keep hope alive.
