CHICAGO – Former presidents, music legends and thousands of adoring people were set to celebrate the life of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday, March 6, as mourners gathered to honor his vision of social justice and advancing civil rights.
Jackson, one of the world's best-known Black activists who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., died at the age of 84 on Feb. 17 in Chicago. The city served as the Civil Rights Movement icon’s home base for decades. He moved to the city in 1964 to attend the Chicago Theological Seminary; later led Operation Breadbasket, an arm of King’s organization focused on improving economic conditions for Black people, and launched his signature civil rights organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
By 8 a.m. Central Time, thousands of people had already gathered outside the House of Hope, far on the city’s South Side, to pay their respects to Jackson.
“This is an occasion for all of us — not only the African American community, but the rest of the world, to celebrate the accomplishments of a great man,” Eric Williams, a Chicago resident and member of the House of Hope church, told USA TODAY. “He will be greatly missed.”
Williams and Shauna Weatherspoon had already been in line for about an hour by 8 a.m. Weatherspoon, also of Chicago, noted what it meant to have such an emblem of service living so close to home.
