Rev. Jesse Jackson

Rev. Jesse Jackson, an influential civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician who dedicated his life to fighting for racial equality and social justice, died February 17, 2026, at the age of 84.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jesse Jackson grew up in a racially segregated America, forced to sit at the back of public buses, use separate water fountains, and more. These experiences sharpened his resolve to make changes from an early age.

He was elected student class president at the then all-Black Sterling High School, and in 1959 he rejected a contract to play minor league baseball in order to continue his education. The following year, he participated in sit-in demonstrations to protest segregation in Greenville as part of the Greenville Eight. He graduated from North Carolina A&T with a degree in sociology and was three classes short of earning his Master's when he dropped out to focus on the burgeoning civil rights movement. He became an ordained minister in 1968, after studying at Chicago Theological Seminary.

In 1965, Jackson worked with Martin Luther King Jr. during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Impressed by Jackson's energy, King pushed for the younger activist to take a role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). By 1967, Jackson was leading the organization's Operation Breadbasket, a nationwide effort to improve economic conditions for Black Americans.

Following King's assassination in 1968, Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) to address economic inequalities faced by African Americans, and he later founded the Rainbow Coalition. In both cases, he sought to better reach people in office and make the case for equal treatment in the United States.

In 1984 and 1988, in an effort to more aggressively pursue these goals, Jackson ran for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States, making him the first Black candidate since the Reconstruction era to make a serious bid for the presidency. Though written off by some as a fringe candidate, in 1984 he finished third among democratic contenders, and in 1988 he won seven primaries and four caucuses, again exceeding expectations.

Jackson's efforts did not end with his presidential campaign. In 1989, he led protests against the all-white, exclusive policies of country clubs during the Bitburg controversy, where President Ronald Reagan planned to visit a German military cemetery containing Nazi graves. In 1996, Jackson founded the Wall Street Project, focused on increasing diversity and inclusion in corporate America. Then, between 1997 and 2000, he served as a special envoy for the U.S. to Africa, particularly focusing on promoting democracy, conflict resolution, and economic development.

Jackson's legacy centers on his role in the civil rights movement and his advocacy for related policies, including voting rights, education, poverty alleviation, and criminal justice reform. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 by President Bill Clinton. French president Emmanuel Macron appointed him Commander of the Legion of Honor in 2021, France's highest order of merit, for his civil rights work. In 1979 he won the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, among other honors.

In his memorable "Keep Hope Alive" speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Jackson summed up the intersection of activism and politics that drove his life's work: "If an issue is morally right, it will eventually be political."

By Eric San Juan

(Image: Mickey Adair/Getty Images)