The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84 following illness

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime, preeminent civil rights leader in the United States, with deep roots in the Democratic Party, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 84.

Jackson was hospitalized in November after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a life-threatening neurological disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr.,” his family said in a statement. “He died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family.”

Jackson was born in Greenville, S.C., in 1941 and was an ordained Baptist minister. He later became known as a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jackson emerged as a leading voice in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, fighting for causes ranging from economic and social justice to gender equality.

Jackson founded Operation PUSH in 1971, a civil rights organization based on Chicago’s South Side. It eventually evolved into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which Jackson served as president of until 2023, when he stepped down.

He was a central figure in the national Democratic Party for more than six decades. In 1984 and 1988, Jackson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 2000 for his efforts in successfully negotiating the 1999 release of three U.S. soldiers held in Yugoslavia.

In 2024, Jackson received a standing ovation on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago when he made a surprise appearance onstage in a wheelchair.

In recent years, Jackson experienced a series of health setbacks. He had been hospitalized on Nov. 12 and was under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy or PSP, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The organization disclosed that Jackson had been managing the disease for “more than a decade,” and his PSP diagnosis was confirmed “last April.”

PSP affects body movements, walking and balance, as well as eye movements, according to the National Institutes of Health. The exact cause of the rare disease is unknown, but research suggests that it may be caused by damage to nerve cells in specific parts of the brain, primarily in the brainstem.

PSP can be misdiagnosed early on as Parkinson’s disease. In 2015, Jackson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, but he waited until 2017 to publicly announce his diagnosis, addressing his supporters in a letter. “Recognition of the effects of this disease on me has been painful, and I have been slow to grasp the gravity of it,” Jackson said of his diagnosis, which he revealed had also “bested my father.”

In early 2021, Jackson had gall bladder surgery. He was then hospitalized in August 2021 after he tested positive for COVID-19 and was hospitalized again in November of that year after he fell and hit his head at Howard University in Washington, D.C.