Jesse Jackson, the veteran US civil rights leader who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and later mounted two historic bids for the White House, has died at the age of 84, his family has announced.
Jackson died peacefully on Tuesday morning surrounded by his family, according to a statement.
“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.
A protégé of King, Jackson rose to national prominence during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. He later founded organisations aimed at expanding economic and political opportunities for African-Americans and other marginalised communities, becoming one of the most recognisable Black leaders in the United States.
In 1984 and again in 1988, he sought the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. His campaigns energised millions of voters and helped broaden the party’s coalition, paving the way for greater minority participation in national politics.
Though he never secured the nomination, Jackson’s candidacies were widely seen as groundbreaking, demonstrating the viability of a Black candidate mounting a competitive national campaign.
In 2017, Jackson revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He was hospitalised for observation last November after being diagnosed with a degenerative condition.
His death marks the passing of a central figure in the modern American civil rights movement, whose decades of activism left a lasting imprint on US politics and public life.