Baptist pastor who twice tried to run for President of the United States, died this Tuesday at the age of 84 Jesse Jackson, veteran civil rights activist. A friend of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson was unable to fulfill his dream of being the first black president of the USA, but he paved the way for another politician to get there, Barack Obama, a decade and a half later.
“Our father was a servant leader, not only for our family, but also for the oppressed, the voiceless and the marginalized around the world,” says a statement from the family on social media.
“A tireless agent of change, he raised the voice of those who had none, from his presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilizing millions of people to encourage them to register to vote, leaving an indelible mark on history,” the text states.
Two-time US Presidential candidate
Jackson ran for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. president in 1984, when he came in third place. The chosen one was Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, defeated at the polls by Ronald Reagan. In 1988, he ran again for the nomination, finishing in second place, behind Michael Dukakis, defeated in the elections by George HW Bush, then vice president.
The two frustrated campaigns served to increase the participation of black voters in the Democratic primaries, making them the party’s most loyal base. Jackson managed to implement changes to the party voting system that, decades later, enabled Barack Obama to beat Hillary Clinton. “I was a pioneer, an explorer,” Jackson said in a 2020 interview with British daily The Guardian.
Iconic figure of the civil rights movement in the United States, Jackson was born in Greenville (South Carolina) to a single mother. He became a friend and follower of Martin Luther King Jr. And he was with him the day King was killed on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis. His excessive protagonism and “overflowing ambition” ended up leading to fights with other “heirs” of the civil leader, culminating in his expulsion from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), founded by King.
Jackson created his own movement and became involved in controversies
Jackson then created his own movement, Operation PUSH in 1971. In 1996, his organization was renamed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition after merging with The National Rainbow Coalition. The group’s mission is to protect, defend and achieve civil rights. It defines itself as a multiracial, multithematic, progressive and international organization that seeks social change.
Among other controversies, in 1984 Jackson was accused of anti-Semitism for using a pejorative term against New York voters. In 2001, he admitted that he had a daughter in an extramarital relationship with a co-worker.
Jackson revealed that he suffered from Parkinson’s in 2017. He had been hospitalized in November to receive treatment for a rare and particularly serious neurodegenerative disease, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
