5 things to know about civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, an SC native who died at 84

Civil rights activists lost a legend today.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, a prominent civil rights leader who followed MLK Jr. during his years of triumph, died at 84. He was hospitalized in recent months due to complications with progressive supranuclear palsy.

On Thursday morning, he died peacefully and was surrounded by family, according to a statement from his nonprofit organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

“Our father was a servant leader - not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in the statement. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”

“He showed us that progress is born from courage, the courage to speak when silence is easier, to build bridges when division is encouraged, and to seek dignity where others refuse to look,” SC representative Wendell Gilliard shared in a statement.

Here are five things to know about Jesse Jackson:

Born in South Carolina during Jim Crow

Jackson was born in 1941 Greenville, South Carolina. His mother, Jesse Louis Burns, was 16 years old at the time, and his father, Luis Robinson, was her neighbor and a married man. Jackson’s mother married a different man, Charles Henry Jackson, a year later, who later adopted Jesse.

Jackson graduated from one of the two all-Black public schools in Greenville. He was elected class president and excelled in athletics. In 1959, he went to the University of Illinois, where he was awarded a football scholarship. He later transferred to the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina.

Worked with MLK Jr.

Jackson took part in the 1965 voting rights march to Selma, Alabama, where Martin Luther King Jr. offered him a staffing position with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was one of the main driving forces of the civil rights movement.

He soon became the national director of the SCLC, organizing boycotts of companies that still engaged in job discrimination. King viewed him as a protégé, according to The Guardian.

Jackson was feet away from Martin Luther King Jr. when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.

Ran for president twice

At 42, Jackson ran for president in 1984, making him the first black candidate to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination since 1972. While he was not the first Black person to run for the presidency, he was the first to pose a serious challenge. He finished third to the eventual nominee Walter Mondale, the former vice president, who later lost in the election.

Once Jackson gained more experience, he ran again in 1984, securing triple the number of white votes he had in his first run. He placed second, right behind Michael Dukakis, who lost the election to George H.W. Bush.

His runnings helped paved a path for Barack Obama to become the first Black President of the United States.

Arrested for protesting segregation

When Jackson was 18 years old in 1960, he and seven other men were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for protesting segregation at a public library. Greenville’s libraries eventually became desegregated, and the charges against Jackson and the others arrested were dropped.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

On Aug. 9, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Jackson had influence in the U.S. and internationally. He met world leaders, scored diplomatic victories, like the release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman from Syria in 1984, as well as the 1990 release of more than 700 foreign women and children held after Iraq invaded Kuwait. In 1999, he won the freedom of three Americans imprisoned in Yugoslavia.

This story was originally published February 17, 2026 at 12:42 PM.