LEILA FADEL, HOST:
One of the country’s most influential leaders, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, has died. In a statement from his family posted on Instagram, they said he passed peacefully this morning surrounded by his family. Jackson was 84 years old. He was a Baptist minister. His soaring oratory and charisma helped propel him to the national stage. Jackson fought for the rights of Black Americans for decades. He ran for president twice and inspired millions during a lifetime of achievement and controversy that bridged a divide between civil rights activism and electoral politics.
Reactions are pouring in this morning, including from fellow civil rights activists, the Reverend Al Sharpton, who said his mentor was a movement unto himself. The Bishop William Barber also called Jackson a mentor. He wrote, of the legacy that lives on in those Jackson inspired, may we all take up his hope for the America that has never been but nevertheless must be. NPR’s Cheryl Corley has this remembrance.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: When Jesse Jackson held his weekly Saturday morning meetings at his Rainbow PUSH headquarters in Chicago, it often sounded like Sunday church, with a mix of music and message.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) We’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord.
CORLEY: This was a celebration for Jackson’s 75th birthday. He was at home in an auditorium where he had for years urged people to celebrate Blackness. Looking like an elder statesman – tall at 6’3″, gray at the temples and wearing a brown jacket – Jackson smiled as the choir sang then walked to the microphone and led the audience in his trademark chant.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JESSE JACKSON: Say, I am…
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: …Somebody.
JACKSON: I am…
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
CORLEY: Journalist Barbara Reynolds, the author of the Jackson biography “America’s David,” says Jackson had tremendous allure, swashbuckling good looks and he knew how to turn a phrase. She says in the early days, thousands came to Operation PUSH to hear Jackson’s rhyming atmosphere of hope.
BARBARA REYNOLDS: It had a cadence that we were used to hearing from the Black church. But it was a cadence, you know, of now, not what we’re going to get when we die and all go to heaven, but we’re going to get ours right now. And he was young.
CORLEY: A hip Chicago preacher who wore tennis shoes and leather jackets. Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. His surname changed to Jackson after his single mother married and his stepfather adopted him. Later, as a college student at what’s now North Carolina A&T, Jackson became a leader in the lunch counter sit-ins protesting the whites-only policies at restaurants. He’d go on to join Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference – or SCLC. In 1968, he was among the group of aides who witnessed King’s assassination in Memphis.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: You couldn’t tell it was a shot.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You didn’t hear a shot?
JACKSON: No, until it hit his face. It sounded like a stick of dynamite or a large firecracker.
CORLEY: During the Jackson birthday celebration, his protege, Reverend Al Sharpton, recounted how King had appointed Jackson to head Operation Breadbasket in Chicago. It was the arm of the SCLC focused on improving the economic conditions of Black Americans. Sharpton says Jackson turned a regional organization into a national one.
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AL SHARPTON: He stayed here, building an economic movement – boycotts, opening doors and opening boardrooms and all – and then a political movement.
CORLEY: Jackson split with the SCLC after King’s death. In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH – People United to Serve Humanity. Later, he merged PUSH with his National Rainbow Coalition. The late Frank Watkins, a longtime Jackson aide, said during an interview with NPR about the early days that the emphasis from the beginning was on pushing for a greater share of political and economic power for African Americans and the poor. There were boycotts of stores and corporations, along with efforts to expand franchise opportunities and other business avenues for African Americans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
FRANK WATKINS: I can’t think of another private citizen who probably contributed more jobs and more economic opportunities than Reverend Jackson.
CORLEY: Voter registration drives were also on the PUSH agenda. In 1983, as Jackson launched a national voter registration drive, crowds chanting, run, Jesse, run, urged him to run for president. That November, he told supporters he would seek the Democratic nomination.
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JACKSON: Our time has come. All the way from the statehouse to the courthouse to the White House, our time has come.
CORLEY: During the campaign, there were some stumbles. Jackson drew criticism and apologized for making a disparaging remark about New York’s Jewish community. He’d go on to place third in the Democratic primary, the strongest showing ever by an African American candidate. He ran for president again in 1988, and he won more than 7 million votes and became the first African American candidate to win major primaries. His convention speech electrified Democrats, who waved red-and-white Jesse signs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: America will get better and better. Keep hope alive.
(CHEERING)
JACKSON: Keep hope alive.
(CHEERING)
JACKSON: Keep hope alive.
CORLEY: Jackson’s campaign made sure that African American issues were included in the Democrats’ platform. He also negotiated changes in counting delegates in the nominating process that paved the way later for Barack Obama’s presidential win. During his lifetime, Jackson crisscrossed the country and the globe, spotlighting a plethora of domestic and international problems.
He spoke out against apartheid, called for a Palestinian state. He talked about issues that affected women, workers, students and immigrants. He brought home hostages from Cuba, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq and Yugoslavia. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington says there was often lots of eye-rolling and ridicule, though, when it came to Jackson’s globe-trotting ways.
LAURA WASHINGTON: He was aggressive and shameless about jumping in front of the microphone. And at the same time, we know in this modern age that you’ve got to market yourself. You’ve got to market your brand and have power. And he made sure he was always top of mind.
CORLEY: And in 2000, Jackson received the highest honor a civilian can receive, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A year later, he was embroiled in controversy after it became known he had fathered a daughter out of wedlock. Later, another firestorm when Jackson made disparaging remarks about presidential candidate Barack Obama. But in November of 2008, Obama made history. And tears flowed down Jesse Jackson’s face as he stood with hundreds of thousands in Chicago’s Grant Park and watched the country’s first Black president declare victory 20 years after the last Jackson campaign.
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JACKSON: That was a big deal. It was the moment, but also it was the movement and the memories. And I wish that Dr. King or Medgar Evers could’ve been there just for 30 seconds to see the fruit of their labors. And I thought about them and I just wept. It was tears of joy.
CORLEY: In late 2017, Jackson revealed that he had Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder that affects movement. In 2023, he announced he was stepping down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a decision marking the end of an era.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: I am…
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: …Somebody.
JACKSON: I am…
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: …Somebody.
JACKSON: I may be poor…
CORLEY: Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: But I am…
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: …Somebody.
JACKSON: I may be on welfare…
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: I may be on welfare…
JACKSON: But I am…
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: But I am…
JACKSON: …Somebody.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: …Somebody.
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