Jesse Jackson, the influential civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate, died on Tuesday at the age of 84. Hailed by Martin Luther King III and his wife Andrea as 'a living bridge between generations', Jackson was the most significant African American political voice between Martin Luther King and Barack Obama.
Jackson's two runs for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and 1988 opened the imaginative space for a Black president and brought the civil rights movement into the heart of the party. He created a 'rainbow coalition' of diverse supporters that continues to shape Democratic politics today. His campaigns also helped register millions of Black voters and made African American issues central to the party platform.
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, during the Jim Crow era, Jackson experienced segregation first-hand, from being made to sit at the back of a bus to working at a bakery with separate water fountains. He took part in his first sit-in in 1960 and joined the Selma-to-Montgomery marches in 1965, where he caught King's attention.
Jackson was with King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when he was assassinated in 1968, a moment that haunted him. 'Every time I think about it, it's like pulling a scab off a sore,' he later said. He positioned himself as King's successor, advocating for the poor and marginalised on issues from voting rights to healthcare, and travelled to South Africa in 1979 to push for sanctions against apartheid.
His legacy lives on in figures such as Senator Raphael Warnock and movements such as Black Lives Matter. Jackson's push for racial justice, marriage equality, and a progressive foreign policy opposing the Iraq war provided a blueprint for the modern left. 'My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,' he told the 1984 Democratic convention.
