{"id":302489,"date":"2026-02-17T12:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/302489\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:23:08","slug":"jesse-jackson-civil-rights-leader-and-us-presidential-hopeful-dies-at-84-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/302489\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and US presidential hopeful, dies at 84 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rev Jesse Jackson, the US civil rights campaigner<\/a> who was prominent for more than 50 years and who ran strongly for the Democratic presidential nomination<\/a> in 1988, has died. He was 84.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur father was a servant leader \u2013 not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,\u201d the Jackson family said in a statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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 honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.\u201d<\/p>\n

No cause of death was given.<\/p>\n

Jackson had had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) for more than a decade. He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a battery of tests, my physicians identified the issue as Parkinson\u2019s disease, a disease that bested my father,\u201d Jackson said at the time. \u201cRecognition of the effects of this disease on me has been painful, and I have been slow to grasp the gravity of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was also twice hospitalised with Covid in recent years.<\/p>\n

A fixture in the civil rights movement and Democratic politics since the 1960s, Jackson was once close to Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Guardian in May 2020, Jackson said: \u201cI was a trailblazer, I was a pathfinder. I had to deal with doubt and cynicism and fears about a black person running. There were black scholars writing papers about why I was wasting my time. Even blacks said a black couldn\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big moment in history,\u201d Jackson told the Guardian, 12 years later.<\/p>\n

Twenty years later, the first black president, Barack Obama, saluted Jackson for making his victory possible. Obama celebrated in Chicago, also home to Jackson.<\/p>\n

During the Covid pandemic, he campaigned against disparities in care and outcomes, asking: \u201cAfter 400 years of slavery, segregation and discrimination, why would anybody be shocked that African Americans are dying disproportionately from the coronavirus?\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said all past presidents had failed to \u201cend the virus of white superiority and fix the multifaceted issues confronting African Americans\u201d.<\/p>\n

Born on October 8th, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson became involved in politics at an early age as he navigated the segregated south. He was elected class president at the all-black Sterling high school, where he also excelled in athletics. In 1959, he received a football scholarship to the University of Illinois. The Chicago White Sox offered the young Jackson a spot on their baseball team, but he decided to focus on his education instead.<\/p>\n

During winter break his freshman year of college, Jackson returned home to Greenville and tried to obtain a book needed for his studies from the white-only Greenville public library, but he was turned away. The experience stayed with him. <\/p>\n

A few months later on July 16th, 1960, Jackson and seven black high school students entered the Greenville library for a peaceful protest. After browsing the library and reading books, the group later known as the Greenville Eight, were quickly arrested for disorderly conduct and later released on a $30 bond. Following a federal lawsuit the students\u2019 filed, a judge ruled that they had the right to use the publicly funded institution, and the Greenville library system became integrated in September 1960.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jesse Jackson obituary: A trailblazer who helped open the door to a black presidencyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Jackson did not return to the University of Illinois after his first year, and instead transferred to the historically Black college the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. At North Carolina A&T, he continued to play football as a quarterback, was the national officer for the black fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, and was elected the student body president. While earning a sociology degree, he also continued his activism by participating in sit-ins at restaurants in Greensboro.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rev Jesse Jackson speaking at the Equality & Rights Alliance conference in Dublin Castle in 2021. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cMy leadership skills came from the athletic arena,\u201d Jackson told the Washington Post in 1984. \u201cIn many ways, they were developed from playing quarterback. Assessing defences; motivating your own team. When the game starts, you use what you\u2019ve got \u2013 and don\u2019t cry about what you don\u2019t have. You run to your strength. You also practice to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

During college, Jackson met his future wife Jacqueline, whom he married in 1962 and later had five children with \u2013 Santita, Jesse Jr., Jonathan Luther, Yusef DuBois, and Jacqueline Jr. He would later go on to have a sixth child, Ashley, during an extramarital affair with Karin Stanford in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

Jackson first met King, who would become his mentor, at an airport in Atlanta in the early 1960s. King had followed Jackson\u2019s student activism from afar for several years.<\/p>\n

In 1964, Jackson enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary, as he continued to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson travelled with his classmates to Selma, Alabama, to join the movement after he watched news footage of Bloody Sunday, where King led nonviolent civil rights marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, who were then beaten by law enforcement. <\/p>\n

Impressed by Jackson\u2019s leadership at Selma, King offered him a position with the civil rights group that he cofounded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).<\/p>\n

After a couple of years, Jackson put his seminary studies on hold to focus on SCLC\u2019s Operation Breadbasket, an economic justice programme that harnessed the power of black churches by calling on ministers to put pressure companies to employ more black people through negotiations and boycotts. In 1967, Jackson became Operation Breadbasket\u2019s national director, and was ordained as a minister a year later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew he was going to do a good job,\u201d King said at an Operation Breadbasket meeting in 1968, \u201cbut he\u2019s done better than a good job\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tragedy struck soon after Jackson gained a leadership position at SCLC. On April 4th, 1968, Jackson witnessed King\u2019s assassination from below the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

The experience stayed with Jackson for the rest of his life. \u201cEvery time I think about it, it\u2019s like pulling a scab off a sore,\u201d he said in 2018. \u201cIt\u2019s a hurtful, painful thought: that a man of love is killed by hate; that a man of peace should be killed by violence; a man who cared is killed by the careless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following King\u2019s death, Jackson continued to work for SCLC until 1971, when he created his own organisation to improve black people\u2019s economic conditions, People United to Save Humanity (Push). The organisation hosted reading programmes for black youth and helped them find jobs, and also encouraged corporations to hire more black managers and executives.<\/p>\n

In 1984, Jackson ran as a Democratic candidate for president, becoming the second black person to unveil a nationwide campaign following Shirley Crisholm more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rev Jesse Jackson pictured with Martin Luther King in 1966. Photograph: Universal History Archive\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cTonight we come together bound by our faith in a mighty God, with genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy of a great party, the Democratic Party, which is the best hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just, and peaceful course,\u201d Jackson told an audience at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, California. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a perfect party. We\u2019re not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless, to teach the illiterate, to provide jobs for the jobless, and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lost the Democratic nomination to former vice-president Walter Mondale, with the incumbent Republican president Ronald Reagan ultimately winning the election.<\/p>\n

After his first presidential run, Jackson created the National Rainbow Coalition to push for voting rights and social programmes. In the mid-1990s, Jackson merged his two organisations together to form the multiracial group Rainbow Push Coalition, which focuses on educational and economic equality. <\/p>\n

Throughout the years, the coalition has paid more than $6 million in college scholarships, and gave financial assistance to more than 4,000 families facing foreclosures so that they could save their homes, according to their website.<\/p>\n

Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination for president a second time in 1988, performing strongly but losing out to Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor who was beaten heavily in the general election by George HW Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried because I thought about those who made it possible who were not there … People who paid a real price: Ralph Abernathy, Dr King, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, those who fought like hell [at the Democratic National Convention] in Atlantic City in \u201964, those in the movement in the south.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cHowever innocent and unintended, it was wrong,\u201d Jackson said after initially denying using those words in a private conversation.<\/p>\n

In 2008, he apologised for a crudely phrased comment he made about Barack Obama, who was on his way to winning the presidency. The financial practices of Jackson\u2019s organisations also came under scrutiny over the years.<\/p>\n

Beyond pressing for political change, Jackson pressured large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. and BP to improve minority hiring and business opportunities and urged pension funds to make loans in low-income communities.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In 2000, president Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the nation\u2019s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his decades of work focused on increasing opportunities for people of colour.<\/p>\n

Jackson took King\u2019s work forward, staying to the fore in the worldwide civil rights movement through a tumultuous half-century of American history, through to the election of Donald Trump and the rise of Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rev Jesse Jackson taking part in a march for jobs, around the White House, in 1975. Photograph: Buyenlarge\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cDr King believed in multiracial, multicultural coalitions of conscience, not ethnic nationalism,\u201d Jackson said in 2018. \u201cHe felt nationalism \u2013 whether black, white or brown \u2013 was narrowly conceived, given our global challenges. So having a multiracial setting said much about his vision of America and the world, what America should stand for as well as the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moral arc of the universe is long and it bends towards justice, but you have to pull it to bend. It doesn\u2019t bend automatically. Dr King used to remind us that every time the movement has a tailwind and goes forward, there are headwinds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who oppose change in some sense were re-energised by the Trump demagoguery. Dr King would have been disappointed by his victory but he would have been prepared for it psychologically. He would have said: \u2018We must not surrender our spirits. We must use this not to surrender but fortify our faith and fight back.\u2019\u201d \u2013 Guardian, Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rev Jesse Jackson, the US civil rights campaigner who was prominent for more than 50 years and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14843,42,12674,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-302489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-democratic-party","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-martin-luther-king","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}