The legendary Rev. Jesse Jackson died Tuesday (Feb. 17). He was 84. Jackson was a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after King’s assassination.
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What To Know About Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Death
One of his six children, 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.”
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He is survived by his wife, 81-year-old Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, and their other four children, Yusef DuBois, Jacqueline Lavinia Jr., Jonathan Luther and Jesse L. Jackson Jr. Rev. Jackson also had a sixth child, Ashley Jackson, whom he fathered with one of his employees at Rainbow/PUSH, Karen L. Stanford. Given his own history as a child born out of wedlock, he reportedly supported Ashley emotionally and financially.
The family has not revealed an official cause of death. However, Rev. Jesse Jackson experienced profound health challenges in his final years, including a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and speak. Still, the reverend continued protesting against racial injustice into the era of Black Lives Matter.
In his final months, Rev. Jackson was receiving 24-hour care. Additionally, he had lost his ability to speak. He communicated with family and visitors by holding their hands and squeezing, per the Associated Press.
Jesse Jackson’s Health Took Several Hits Until The End
In 2017, Rev. Jesse Jackson disclosed that he had sought treatment for Parkinson’s. However, he continued to make public appearances even as the disease made it more difficult for listeners to understand him. Earlier this year doctors confirmed a diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy, a life-threatening neurological disorder. He was admitted to a hospital in November 2025.
During the coronavirus pandemic, he and his wife survived being hospitalized with COVID-19. Jackson was vaccinated early, urging Black people in particular to get protected, given their higher risks for bad outcomes.
“It’s America’s unfinished business — we’re free, but not equal,” Jackson told the AP. “There’s a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity.”
The Icon Who Fought For Black Pride
As a young organizer in Chicago, Rev. Jesse Jackson was called to meet with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis shortly before King was killed and he publicly positioned himself thereafter as King’s successor.
Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad. He advocated for the poor and underrepresented on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders. Through his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society. And when he declared, “I am Somebody,” in a poem he often repeated, he sought to reach people of all colors
“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,” Jackson intoned.
He took the message literally and personally, having risen from the segregated South to become America’s best-known civil rights activist since Dr. King.
“Even if we win,” he told marchers in Minneapolis before the officer whose knee kept George Floyd from breathing was convicted of murder, “it’s relief, not victory. They’re still killing our people. Stop the violence, save the children. Keep hope alive.”
Jackson’s voice, infused with the stirring cadences and powerful insistence of the Black church, demanded attention. On the campaign trail and elsewhere, he used rhyming and slogans to deliver his messages. Some of his other known ones? such as: “Hope not dope” and “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it then I can achieve it.”
Still, Rev. Jesse Jackson had his share of critics, both within and outside of the Black community. Some considered him a grandstander, too eager to seek out the spotlight. Looking back on his life and legacy, Jackson told The Associated Press in 2011 that he felt blessed to be able to continue the service of other leaders before him and to lay a foundation for those to come.
“A part of our life’s work was to tear down walls and build bridges, and in a half century of work, we’ve basically torn down walls,” Jackson said. “Sometimes when you tear down walls, you’re scarred by falling debris, but your mission is to open up holes so others behind you can run through.”
Celebs React To Rev. Jackson’s Passing (LIVE UPDATES)
Fellow civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said his mentor “was not simply a civil rights leader; he was a movement unto himself.”
“He taught me that protest must have purpose, that faith must have feet, and that justice is not seasonal, it is daily work,” Sharpton wrote in a statement.
Sharpton added that Jackson taught “trying is as important as triumph. That you do not wait for the dream to come true; you work to make it real.” Swipe below to see the tritbute Sharpton posted on Instagram.
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Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen, Amy Forliti, and Aaron Morrison, along with former writer Karen Hawkins, contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
