Jesse Jackson, a towering figure in the American civil rights movement who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., died Feb. 17 at age 84, his family announced. His death came about three months after he was hospitalized with a rare neurodegenerative disease.
Jackson was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, and a prominent voice in national politics for decades.
“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. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
Jackson had been battling progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease but typically more aggressive. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, there is no cure for PSP, and treatment is focused on managing symptoms.
Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights group Jackson founded, said in a November 2025 statement that Jackson had been admitted to a hospital “under observation” for PSP and had lived with the disease for more than a decade.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown; his children, including former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill.; and his grandchildren.
A mixed legacy
Jackson began his activism in 1960 as a student, when he and seven other classmates attempted to desegregate a public library in Greenville, South Carolina, according to his biography from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. He rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close associate of King, participating in the 1965 voting rights marches in Alabama. Jackson was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968. Jackson later described his years working alongside King as a “phenomenal four years of work,” AP News reported.
In the 1980s, Jackson ran twice for president, though he fell short of the Democratic nomination both times. In 1997, former President Bill Clinton appointed Jackson as “Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa,” and he traveled to several African countries to meet with national leaders.
Clinton later awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2000. According to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Jackson received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees and gave frequent lectures at universities.
Early in his career, Jackson staunchly defended the rights of the unborn. He described abortion as “genocide” in a 1973 interview with Jet magazine, according to a 2021 report from pro-life organization Focus on the Family.
“Anything growing is living… If you got the thrill to set the baby in motion and you don’t have the will to protect it, you’re dishonest,” he said. “You try to avoid reproducing sickness. You try to avoid reproducing deformities. But you don’t try to stop reproducing and procreating human life at its best. For who knows the cure for cancer won’t come out of some mind of some black child?”
But by his 1984 presidential run, Jackson adopted the Democratic Party’s stance on abortion, which he maintained for the remainder of his political career.
Tributes poured in from across the political spectrum after news broke of his passing. In a Truth Social post shortly after Jackson’s death, President Donald Trump called him a “force of nature” and offered his condolences to the family.
“I knew him well, long before becoming President,” Trump wrote. “He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and street smarts. He was very gregarious - Someone who truly loved people! Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way.”