American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson during a ceremony honoring US Army pilot Robert O. Goodman (left), captured in Syria, whose release Jackson had negotiated, Washington, January 4, 1984. Behind him, US President Ronald Reagan. LARRY DOWNING/SYGMA VIA GETTY IMAGES
He received a final standing ovation on August 20, 2024, in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention at which Kamala Harris was nominated as the first Black woman presidential candidate in US history. Weakened by nearly a decade of Parkinson's disease, which confined him to a wheelchair, Jesse Jackson could only respond to the applause with smiles and waves. His powerful oratory, which had propelled him to the forefront of the Democratic Party four decades earlier, was a thing of the past.
Jackson died at the age of 84, his family announced on Tuesday, February 17, in a statement. "His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity," the family said, adding that he died "peacefully... surrounded by his family."
Jesse Jackson was born on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, when segregation was the law across the Southern states. The illegitimate son of a 16-year-old high school student and a prominent member of the city's Black community, a former professional boxer aged 33, he received a surname when his mother married a postman a year later, though the stigma could not be entirely erased. Maintaining relationships with both men, he drew from this experience the energy to fuel his highest ambitions.
