From segregation to the national stage: Jesse Jackson’s unfinished revolution

From the segregated South to the national stage of American politics

Jesse Jackson was born into the hard lines of segregated America and grew into one of the most recognisable voices of the United States civil rights movement. For more than half a century, he stood at the centre of the country’s moral and political debates, speaking for the poor, the excluded, and the overlooked.

Born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, he was the son of Helen Burns, then a teenage high school student, and Noah Louis Robinson, a married neighbour. His mother later married Charles Henry Jackson, who adopted him and gave him the name that would become known around the world.

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Raised in the segregated South, Jackson understood early what discrimination meant. He went on to study sociology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, now North Carolina A&T State University, where he began organising students in support of the civil rights struggle.

Walking with  Martin Luther King

Jackson rose to prominence during the civil rights era as a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. He first worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, joining marches and sit-ins across the South. He later joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, working directly alongside King.

In 1965, he took part in the Selma to Montgomery marches, deepening his relationship with King. He would later describe those years as “a phenomenal four years of work”.

Jackson was in Memphis in April 1968 when King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel. For decades, he spoke of that day as a defining trauma. In a 2008 interview with Al Jazeera, he said the killing “traumatised” him and accused the United States government of unfairly turning public opinion against King.

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After the assassination, Jackson said he wore a turtleneck stained with King’s blood for two days, including to a memorial service in Chicago. “I come here with a heavy heart because on my chest is the stain of blood from Dr King’s head,” he told the Chicago City Council. Some of King’s aides later questioned that account, but the moment became part of the public story of his grief.

Building his own movement

King’s death marked the end of one chapter and the start of another. Jackson moved to Chicago and founded Operation PUSH, an organisation aimed at improving economic and political conditions for Black Americans. He later established the National Rainbow Coalition, bringing together a broad alliance of marginalised communities, including working-class Americans and LGBTQ citizens. The two organisations eventually merged.

He became known for his gift as an orator. At rallies and church gatherings, he would often lead crowds in a call-and-response poem titled “I Am Somebody”.

“I may be poor, but I am Somebody. I may be young, but I am Somebody. I may be on welfare, but I am Somebody,” he would say, turning affirmation into a political message.

Two historic presidential bids

Jackson twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988. At the time, few believed a Black candidate could mount a serious national campaign.

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In 1984, he won 3.3 million votes, nearly one-fifth of those cast in the Democratic primaries. He finished third behind former vice president Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart. His campaign lost momentum after it became public that he had privately used an antisemitic slur. Jackson apologised publicly.

Four years later, he returned as a more disciplined and mainstream candidate. In 1988, he won 11 primaries and caucuses and secured 6.8 million votes, about 29 percent of the total. He finished second to Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.

At the Democratic National Convention that year, Jackson delivered one of the most memorable speeches of the modern era.

“America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one colour, one cloth,” he told delegates in Atlanta. “Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Do not you surrender.”

Though he never held elected office, his campaigns expanded the electorate and brought millions of new voters into the Democratic Party.

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From Chicago to the world

In the 1990s, Jackson’s work increasingly crossed borders. He served as a special envoy for Africa under President Bill Clinton and was a strong advocate for ending apartheid in South Africa. He travelled to countries including Syria, Iraq, and Serbia in efforts to secure the release of detained Americans.

At home, he remained a constant presence in political life. He supported Barack Obama during his historic 2008 campaign and was seen in tears on election night in Chicago. “Our children walk into a very different America tomorrow,” he told Al Jazeera, calling the moment “mind-boggling, mind-blowing”.

He later endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Sanders responded: “It is one of the honours of my life to be supported by a man who has put his life on the line for the last 50 years fighting for justice.”

Jackson was also an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, arguing that the country must recommit to civil rights and economic justice.

Illness and final years

In 2017, Jackson revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. His health declined in later years, yet he continued to appear at rallies and public events. He campaigned for greater access to Covid vaccines in Black communities, supported the Black Lives Matter movement, and called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Speaking to demonstrators in Minneapolis ahead of the murder conviction of the police officer who killed George Floyd, he urged persistence. “Even if we win, it is relief, not victory,” he said. “They are still killing our people. Stop the violence, save the children. Keep hope alive.”

In 2024, he appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and at a city council meeting supporting a resolution backing a ceasefire in Gaza. By then, he required round-the-clock care. In his final months, he lost his ability to speak and communicated by holding and squeezing the hands of family and visitors.

A towering voice

Al Sharpton once reflected on Jackson’s legacy: “How he continued Martin Luther King’s movement for justice, how he cemented it in the north and made the King movement truly national. He changed the nation. No one in our lifetime served longer and stronger.”

Jesse Jackson’s life traced the arc of modern America, from the segregated South to the election of the country’s first Black president. He never reached the Oval Office. Yet his campaigns reshaped political possibility, and his voice carried across generations.

“A part of our life’s work was to tear down walls and build bridges,” he told the Associated Press in 2011. “Sometimes when you tear down walls, you are scarred by falling debris, but your mission is to open up holes so others behind you can run through.”

For decades, he ended speeches with the same refrain. Keep hope alive.

It became both slogan and instruction, a simple message from a man who believed that even in the darkest hours, morning would come.