United States civil rights leader and eloquent Baptist minister, Jesse Jackson, has died at age 84, his family said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.
“His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by,” Jackson’s family said,” the statement read.
Jackson was raised in the segregated South and became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was an inspirational orator and long-time Chicagoan, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017.
The media-savvy Jackson advocated for the rights of Black Americans and other marginalized communities dating back to the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s spearheaded by his mentor King, a Baptist minister and towering social activist.
Jackson weathered a spate of controversies but remained America’s preeminent civil rights figure for decades.
He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting Black voters and many white liberals in mounting unexpectedly strong campaigns, but fell short of becoming the first Black major party White House nominee. Ultimately, he never held elective office.
He founded the Chicago-based civil rights groups Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition and served as Democratic President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Africa in the 1990s. Jackson was also instrumental in securing the release of a number of Americans and others held overseas in places including Syria, Cuba, Iraq and Serbia.
Jackson pursued his political ambitions in the 1980s, relying on his mesmerising oratory. It was not until fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama’s election as president in 2008 that a Black candidate came as close to securing a major party presidential nomination as Jackson.
In 1984, Jackson won 3.3 million votes in Democratic nominating contests, about 18% of those cast, and finished third behind eventual nominee Walter Mondale and Gary Hart in the race for the right to face Republican incumbent Ronald Reagan. His candidacy lost momentum after it became public that Jackson had privately called Jewish people “Hymies” and New York “Hymietown.”
In 1988, Jackson was a more polished and mainstream candidate, coming in a close second in the Democratic race to face Republican George H.W. Bush. Jackson gave eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis a run for his money, winning 11 state primaries and caucuses, including several in the South, and amassing 6.8 million votes in nominating contests, or 29%.
Jackson cast himself as a barrier-breaker for people of colour, the impoverished and the powerless. He electrified the 1988 Democratic convention with a speech telling his life story and calling on Americans to find common ground.
“America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one colour, one cloth,” Jackson told the delegates in Atlanta.
“Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender. Suffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint,” Jackson added.
Jackson announced in 2017 at age 76 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a movement disorder marked by trembling, stiffness and poor balance and coordination, after experiencing symptoms for three years.
AFP
