Thousands in Chicago honored civil rights ‘champion’ who ‘stepped forward again and again’, Obama said
At the longtime civil rights activist’s memorial celebration on Friday, the Rev Jesse Jackson was remembered as a “champion” for the “poor and the dispossessed” – as well as “one of the most effective community and political organizers of our time”.
Such tributes came from past Democratic US presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, along with former vice-president Kamala Harris, who received cheers and applause while they joined thousands of others in a Chicago church for a celebration of life for Jackson.
Outside the church on Chicago’s South Side, crowds formed long lines as TV screens showed highlights from some of the best-known speeches delivered by Jackson, who spent more than half a century in public life and mounted a strong campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988.
Vendors on site offered hoodies with his slogan “I am somebody.”
