The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a prominent U.S. civil-rights activist, Baptist minister, and former presidential contender, died Tuesday at age 84, his family said. No cause of death was immediately released. He had been living with Parkinson’s disease since 2017.
In a statement, the family described Jackson as a lifelong advocate for justice and equality whose work uplifted marginalized communities worldwide. Fellow civil-rights leader Al Sharpton called him “one of the nation’s greatest moral voices.”
A protégé of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson rose to prominence in the 1960s civil-rights movement and later founded Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition, expanding his activism into economic and political advocacy. He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, mobilizing Black voters and progressive coalitions, though he never held elected office.
Jackson also served as a diplomatic intermediary abroad and was appointed a special envoy to Africa by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000.
For decades, Jackson remained one of America’s most visible civil-rights figures, continuing to campaign against racial injustice into his later years.
