Rev Jesse Jackson has passed away at the age of 84. He was one of the few civil rights leaders left who could say that they walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While many will remember his civil rights activism as well as some of his bad moments, one of my most enduring memories of Rev. Jackson is the look on his face on Election Night in 2008, when America elected Barack Obama. The soaring pride and emotion he felt in that moment was palpable.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, has died. He was 84. The Baptist minister died on Tuesday, Feb. 17, his family announced in a statement on Instagram, sharing that he died “peacefully” and “surrounded by his family.”
“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 the statement. “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.”
On Nov. 12, 2025, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, his civil rights organization, announced that Jackson had been admitted into the hospital and was undergoing observation for his progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Progressive supranuclear palsy is a brain disease that causes an individual to have issues with balance, swallowing, walking and eye movements, according to the Mayo Clinic. The condition is caused by damage to brain cells.
Days later, his family said Jackson was stable and dispelled rumors that he had been placed on life support. “Reverend Jackson is in stable condition and is breathing without the assistance of machines,” his family wrote in their statement.
The family statement added that arrangements for Jackson’s celebration of life services will be released by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Born in Greenville, S.C., on Oct. 8, 1941, Jackson has been on the frontlines of numerous historic events in the U.S. He famously marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s and was with King the morning he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.
“Every time I think about it, it’s like pulling a scab off a sore,” he told The Guardian in 2018. “It’s a hurtful, painful thought: that a man of love is killed by hate; that a man of peace should be killed by violence; a man who cared is killed by the careless.”
He twice ran for the U.S. presidency, in 1984 and 1988, and was instrumental in securing the release of three U.S. soldiers from Yugoslavia in May 1999 after personally appealing to President Slobodan Milosevic.
Rev. Jackson’s good friend Rev. Al Sharpton has already spoken out today as well. Rev. Sharpton and the Jackson family are in my thoughts. Rev. Jackson lived so many lives and threw himself headfirst into so many issues, but I do believe he had become more mature and circumspect in his later years. Fun fact: Rev. Jackson was friendly with Donald Trump back in the 1980s and ‘90s, but Jackson became a sharp critic of Trump when he entered politics.
I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is
— Ben Phillips (@benphillips76.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 6:41 AM
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
