Jesse Jackson^†

The civil rights movement gave him a platform. The presidential campaigns turned him into a phenomenon. MLK tapped him to run Operation Breadbasket's Chicago branch in 1966, and he became a national figure before he was thirty. After King's assassination, he split from the SCLC and founded Operation PUSH, building his own base from scratch. In 1988, his second presidential campaign won seven primaries and nearly seven million votes. His 'Keep Hope Alive' speech at the Democratic National Convention that year rewrote what Black political ambition looked like in America.

He spent his later decades as a living institution, more respected than listened to. The Rainbow PUSH Coalition kept operating, but his political capital faded as a new generation of Black politicians stepped into the space he'd cleared. The 2017 Parkinson's diagnosis slowed him down publicly; in 2025 it emerged he'd been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a more debilitating neurological condition. He still showed up, still preached, even when the cameras had mostly moved on.

In 1983, the Reagan White House expressed misgivings when Jackson flew to Syria and personally negotiated the release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, a downed American pilot, warning his trip could complicate official efforts. Then quietly accepted the result when Goodman was released. Jackson's hostage negotiations over the decades, from Syria to Cuba to Yugoslavia, became a parallel career that history largely overlooked. He was also born Jesse Louis Burns; he took his stepfather's surname, which means he ran for president, twice, under a name that wasn't given to him at birth.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker ordered flags to fly at half-staff the day Jackson died. Thousands of mourners lined Drexel Boulevard in Chicago for two days of public visitation at Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters on February 26-27, chanting 'I am somebody!' in tribute. Memorial services were scheduled across Chicago, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., with a private homegoing celebration of life set for March 7 at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters.