The Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. was born October 8, 1941, in Greenville, S.C. The architecture of his youth was segregation; the agony and promise of America raced through his young blood. Raised by his mother Helen Burns and later adopted by his stepfather, Charles Henry Jackson, young Jesse knew at an early age that dignity was something Americans had to earn and often barter for.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Jackson was an accomplished student athlete at North Carolina A&T where he graduated in 1964 with a sociology degree as America was rocked by the civil rights movement. He partnered with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and quickly became an unstoppable force in his work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Chicago he directed Operation Breadbasket, which employed boycotts and negotiation to gain employment and economic equality for Black citizens, insisting that civil rights without economic justice was an unfinished sentence.
Jackson happened to be Memphis in April 1968 when King was assassinated. The death changed Jackson's life. In the ensuing decades he became perhaps the movement's most public heir apparent. Splitting with the SCLC in 1971, he started Operation PUSH — People United to Save Humanity — and broadened his agenda to include corporate responsibility, voter registration and education. The PUSH campaign became the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, based on Jackson's theory that an international movement had to include members of all races to achieve social justice.
Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. The first black person to run a modern major campaign for the Democratic Party nomination on a nationally competitive stage, Jackson failed to win either nomination but millions voted for him over the course of his campaigns. Jackson's campaigns showed that electoral politics would forever be more inclusive than they had been previously—changes that would come to fruition with Obama's election twenty years later. Jackson inspired generations with his ability to build diverse coalitions. His campaigns' slogan, "Keep hope alive," came to represent hope through politics based on moral imperatives.
Away from election rallies, Jackson became something of an informal ambassador, helping negotiate the release of captured Americans abroad and involving himself in foreign affairs crises when he felt diplomatic pressure could work where ostracism would not. Supporters saw Jackson as courageous; detractors dismissed him as grandstanding. Both agreed he was effective.
Jackson's personal life was played out very publicly. Jackson married Jacqueline Brown Jackson in 1962, with whom he had five children. Jackson later recognized that he had fathered a child with another woman while still married to Jacqueline, hurting and then reconciling with his family over the situation. In 2017 Jackson announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He was later diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. Jackson slowly receded from his leadership role as his health deteriorated. He announced his resignation from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in 2023 after serving as its leader for more than fifty years.
Jesse Jackson passed away on February 17, 2026, at his home in Chicago. He was 84. He was surrounded by family at the time of his death. Condolences have been offered from around the country, even from those who didn't agree with him. Jackson spent his life demanding that America's moral account be settled publicly. Funeral services are pending. They will honor both his past as a minister and his prominence as a figure on the national stage. The family will release information on his burial once arrangements have been made.
Jackson spent over five decades balancing on the fence between dissent and dominance. He never fully embraced the establishment. Never completely rejected it either. Ambitious. Flawed. Dogged. Essential. Jackson made hope mandatory in a country that could never quite live up to its promise.
If Jesse Jackson’s life and legacy moved you, please take a moment to comment, rate, and share your reflections so that the conversation, and the hope he championed, continues.
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