Jesse Jackson, Sr. Biography

Once an aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson was a political activist and public figure from the civil rights days of the 1960s until the early 21st century.

Jesse Jackson went to the University of Illinois on a football scholarship, but changed schools in 1960 to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. He graduated in 1964 and went to Chicago to study for a Master of Divinity degree, but left school to work in the emerging civil rights movement. (He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1968 and was awarded his degree in 2000.)

Jackson became a close colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was present the day Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. After MLK’s death, disagreeing factions led to a splintering of the movement’s leaders, and Jackson went off on his own in the 1970s.

Jackson founded the non-profit organization PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), using consumer boycotts and political pressure to push for equal rights for African Americans. Known as a powerful orator, he was in the 1980s a regular presence at rallies and protests, especially on topics of employment, business opportunities and social equality.

He was several times an unofficial U.S. envoy in diplomatic missions; in 1999 he helped secure the release of three American military prisoners from Yugoslavia. He has also served as a “shadow” senator for Washington, D.C., advocating for voters in that district.

Rev. Jesse Jackson made unsuccessful runs for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president in 1984 and 1988, losing to Walter Mondale in 1984 and to Michael Dukakis in 1988. (Both genereal elections were won by Republican candidates: Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.) Jackson became a familiar face on television, often as a guest on talk shows and as host of his own show on CNN, Both Sides with Jesse Jackson (1992-2000).

Jesse Jackson announced in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s Disease, and he was hospitalized in 2026 for treatment of the neurodegenerative condition known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). He died in 2026, though his family did not immediately give a cause of death.