Veteran US civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson died Tuesday, his family said in a statement. He was 84. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by,” Jackson’s family said.
“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family statement said. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.”
As a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s, a dynamic Black orator and a successful mediator in international disputes, the longtime Baptist minister expanded the space for African Americans on the national stage for more than six decades.
Jackson was present for many consequential moments in the long battle for racial justice in the United States. He was with King in Memphis in 1968 when the civil rights leader was slain; openly wept in the crowd as Barack Obama celebrated his 2008 presidential election; and stood with George Floyd’s family in 2021 after a court convicted an ex-police officer of the unarmed Black man’s murder.
