{"id":116528,"date":"2026-02-17T23:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116528\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T23:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:23:13","slug":"pittsburgh-leaders-remember-jesse-jackson-as-a-civil-rights-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116528\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh leaders remember Jesse Jackson as a civil rights “giant”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse Jackson<\/a>\u00a0is being remembered by many in the local civil rights movement, including Tim Stevens, who founded the Black Political Empowerment Project in Pittsburgh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For many, Jackson is considered the bridge between Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and former President Barack Obama.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stevens said that though Jackson is gone, his goals have not yet been attained, and people need to focus on making that happen.<\/p>\n

“Today, on the 17th day of Black History Month, our nation has lost a giant in the fight for civil rights,” Stevens said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He took time on Tuesday to reflect on Jackson’s death. Stevens believes Pittsburgh was always a place where Jackson felt at home and amongst friends.<\/p>\n

“He loved Nate Smith. Nate Smith, for those of you who don’t know, was an activist in the construction industry in Pittsburgh,” Stevens said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson visited the region many times over the span of 50-plus years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Congresswoman Summer Lee also took time to remember Jackson.<\/p>\n

“I’ve worked closely with my classmate, Jonathan Jackson, who is his son,” Lee said. “When I first got sworn in, to see the Rev. Jessie Jackson there in the balcony to watch us get sworn in, that was a surreal moment.”<\/p>\n

As for Jackson’s legacy, Stevens says it might be captured in two sentences, each with three words. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“‘Keep hope alive,’ and he preached to young black kids in America that ‘we are somebody.'”<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse Jackson\u00a0is being remembered by many in the local civil rights movement, including Tim Stevens, who founded the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[55404,73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-116528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-jesse-jackson","9":"tag-pittsburgh","10":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","11":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}