The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the longtime civil rights activist, Baptist minister and two-time presidential candidate, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 84.
Jesse Jackson was one of the most influential figures in modern Black freedom politics, and a lifelong voice for economic and racial justice. A close aide to Martin Luther King Jnr, he twice ran for US President.
His daughter Santita Jackson confirmed that her father died at home in Chicago, surrounded by family.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement posted online. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.”
Jesse Jackson had been battling Parkinson’s Disease since 2017.
