Rev. Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Titan Who Upended Politics, Dies

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

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Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

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February 17, 2026

Rev Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black

A relentless civil rights warrior, groundbreaking politician and humanitarian, political leaders and civil rights advocates paid tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson upon the announcement of his death on Tuesday. Born in South Carolina, Jackson marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., before establishing himself as an organizer and advocate in Chicago. Jackson founded Operation PUSH and ran for president in 1984 and 1988 by establishing a base of poor and working-class voters across racial lines — the so-called Rainbow Coalition. Credit: Getty images

He was a transformational figure in American history, a civil rights icon who made his reputation as a young man in the Jim Crow South, tutored by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. A veteran of sit-ins and marches, he ran groundbreaking presidential campaigns — built on multiracial coalitions and centering messages of hope and inclusion — that garnered 7 million votes and paved the way for former President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 run.

A skilled community organizer, charismatic politician, and gifted orator who never lost his South Carolina drawl, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was as determined in his advocacy for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and economic security for coal miners in West Virginia as he was to help residents of forgotten Black neighborhoods in Chicago, his adopted hometown.

Yet Jackson — whose work transcended seemingly rigid social, political, and religious boundaries — was at heart an African Methodist Episcopal preacher, called upon by God to minister to His flock. Well into his later years, long after leaving the global stage, those who knew him say Jackson remained faithful to that calling, visiting churches in Chicago and praying with parishioners from his wheelchair.

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