CHICAGO – The Reverend Jesse Jackson has died. The famed civil rights activist, ordained Baptist minister, and former presidential candidate was 84. His family announced his death overnight, saying he passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. Jackson had been battling a progressive neurodegenerative disease for the past decade. He ran for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, performing better than any African American had until Barack Obama won the nomination in 2008. Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996, a merger of his two civil rights nonprofits, the National Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH. The South Carolina native began advocating for civil rights as an undergraduate when he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
Jackson was in Memphis when King was assassinated in 1968. Before founding his own nonprofits, he led Operation Breadbasket, part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain and was suspended by the organization, resigning in 1971. Jackson also brought attention to apartheid in South Africa and advocated for a Palestinian state in the Middle East.