United States civil rights leader and eloquent Baptist minister, Jesse Jackson, has died at age 84, his family said in a statement on Tuesday, 17 February, 2026.
“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.
“His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by,” the statement read.
Jackson was raised in the segregated South and became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was an inspirational orator and long-time Chicagoan who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017.
The media-savvy Jackson advocated for the rights of Black Americans and other marginalised communities dating back to the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s spearheaded by his mentor King, a Baptist minister and towering social activist.
Jackson weathered a spate of controversies but remained America’s preeminent civil rights figure for decades.
He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting Black voters and many white liberals in mounting unexpectedly strong campaigns, but fell short of becoming the first Black major party White House nominee. Ultimately, he never held elective office.
He founded the Chicago-based civil rights groups Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition and served as Democratic President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Africa in the 1990s. Jackson was also instrumental in securing the release of a number of Americans and others held overseas in places including Syria, Cuba, Iraq and Serbia.
Source: The Guardian of UK
