Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights leader who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr and later broke new ground in presidential politics, has died at the age of 84.
His family said he died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by loved ones.
“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 announcing his death.
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Jackson was one of the most recognisable figures of the United States civil rights movement. A close ally and protégé of Martin Luther King Jr, he rose to national prominence in the 1960s as protests against racial segregation and discrimination reshaped American society. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson carried forward a message that linked racial justice with economic equality.
In the decades that followed, he moved from street activism into the heart of American electoral politics. In 1984 and again in 1988, Jackson sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. While he did not secure the nomination, his campaigns drew millions of votes and built a broad coalition of African Americans, working-class voters, and minority communities.
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He was widely seen as the first African American candidate to achieve major success in a major party presidential contest. His runs for the White House helped widen the political space for future leaders, including Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, who would later make their own history on the national stage.
Throughout his career, Jackson focused on voter registration, economic opportunity and social justice. He founded organisations aimed at improving access to education, employment and political representation for marginalised communities. His message often centred on what he called a “rainbow coalition” of poor and working people across racial lines.
In 2017, Jackson revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He was hospitalised last November for observation after doctors identified a degenerative condition.
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Supporters described him as a tireless organiser who pushed America to live up to its ideals. Critics at times questioned his methods and rhetoric. Yet even political opponents acknowledged his impact on the country’s public life.
With his death, the United States loses one of the last towering figures of the civil rights era, a man who moved from the front lines of protest to the ballot box, and in doing so changed the shape of American politic
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