Rev. Jesse Jackson, the veteran civil rights leader and two-time US presidential candidate who spent more than five decades fighting for racial equality and economic justice, has died aged 84.
His family confirmed that he died peacefully on Tuesday, surrounded by relatives. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family said in a statement. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality and love uplifted millions. We ask people to honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.” A cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
In November 2025, Jackson was hospitalised in Chicago and placed under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurological disorder that affects movement, balance and speech. He had previously been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013, and doctors confirmed the PSP diagnosis in April 2025.
Jackson first rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Following King’s assassination, he went on to found Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) and later the National Rainbow Coalition, organisations that were eventually merged into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Through these groups, he championed voter registration drives, economic empowerment initiatives and international human rights causes.
A powerful orator, Jackson twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988. Although he did not secure the nomination, his campaigns mobilised millions of new voters and reshaped the party’s political landscape. He finished third in 1984 and second in 1988, at one point briefly leading in delegates after a decisive victory in Michigan.
As the most prominent Black presidential candidate of his era, Jackson paved the way for future generations. His campaigns are widely seen as helping to lay the groundwork for the historic election of Barack Obama two decades later. Reforms he advocated in 1988, particularly changes to delegate allocation rules in Democratic primaries, also influenced the party’s future nomination contests.
Jackson’s unapologetically progressive platform — focused on social justice, economic fairness and coalition-building across racial and class lines — would later serve as a model for outsider candidates on the left, including Bernie Sanders.
For more than half a century, Jackson remained a towering figure in American public life, known for his moral advocacy, political ambition and enduring belief in what he called the “rainbow coalition” — a multiracial movement for equality and opportunity.
