The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a towering figure of the modern civil rights movement and two-time presidential candidate, has died at 84.
Jackson died Tuesday, February 17, 2026, his family said in a statement reported by NBC, describing him as a “servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.” A cause of death was not immediately given.
His family said he died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.
Jackson had been hospitalized in November and had lived for more than a decade with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative neurological disorder, according to statements from his organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. He publicly disclosed a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2017.
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson rose to national prominence working alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s civil rights movement. He participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march and later joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where he led Operation Breadbasket, an economic empowerment initiative.
After breaking with the SCLC in 1971, Jackson founded Operation PUSH, which later merged into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The organization focused on voter registration, corporate accountability, and other matters.
Jackson mounted two bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. In his second campaign, he won 13 primaries and other contests, becoming at the time the most successful Black presidential candidate in U.S. history.
Over decades, Jackson also worked to secure the release of detained Americans abroad and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 by President Bill Clinton for those efforts.
Tributes poured in across the political spectrum. The Rev. Al Sharpton reportedly said, “Our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices,” per NBC.
President Donald Trump posted on social media that Jackson “was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.’”
Public observances are planned in Chicago, according to the family.
