Reverend Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist, Baptist minister and two-time candidate for president of the United States, died today, February 17. He was 84 years old. His family announced this in a note published by NBC: “Our father was a leader who served the community, not only our family, but also the oppressed, the voiceless and the marginalized around the world.”
BREAKING: Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon and two-time presidential candidate, dies at 84. https://t.co/LRPCGKQEWp
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 17, 2026
Goodbye to Jesse Jackson
The family said Jackson died peacefully, surrounded by the love of his loved ones. He was admitted to hospital in November and had been living with a neurodegenerative disease for years.
Jesse Jackson’s life was full of battles for civil rights and for the redemption of African Americans. His political adventure began as a young activist alongside Martin Luther King since the famous Selma march in 1965: a turning point for the granting of those rights voted by Congress on the proposal of President Lyndon Johnson. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson became one of America’s most influential civil rights leaders, much to the chagrin of some of King’s associates, who considered him too brash. His Rainbow Coalition, a bold alliance of Black, White, Latino, Asian American, Native American and LGBTQ people, is helping pave the way for a more progressive Democratic Party.
His career as an international negotiator is also long. He aspired to the White House twice: in 1984 and 1988. Defeated, he nevertheless rendered a great service to his party: thanks to him, over two million African Americans registered to vote.
His career is also marked by a “slip”. In 2008, interviewed in the studios of the conservative television network Fox, an outburst was heard in which he lashed out at Obama who had just obtained the Democratic nomination: “I want to cut off his balls: Barack is doing a disservice to blacks.” Jackson apologizes, takes it all back, says that Obama is America’s hope, but the damage is now done.
His last public appearance in a political context dates back to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 2024: he was already in a wheelchair, able to understand, but no longer speak.