Longtime activist and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson died at 84 in his home on Tuesday, his family said in a statement. Jackson was the second Black person to pursue a major political party’s presidential nomination, running presidential campaigns for the Democratic party’s ticket in 1984 and 1988.
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson started his activism work in his early adulthood. He marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma, Alabama, in 1965, becoming a close ally of King and his youngest aide at age 24.
Jackson continued to fight for Civil Rights later in his career, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 and forming his organization, The Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition hosted a workshop in collaboration with the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in October of 2019. The workshop featured panelists who discussed diversity, equity and inclusion issues within the entertainment, film, sports and technology industries.
Jackson’s ties to USC date back decades before the event. He was photographed on May 5, 1978, speaking to USC students before a convocation speech at Dedeaux Field. In his speech, Jackson emphasized the importance of voting in America and urged high school students to register.
At the time, Jackson was teaching part-time at USC’s School of Education, according to the USC Libraries archives. The students pictured were part of his EXCEL program, which advocated for inner-city students to seek excellence.
Jackson was also later photographed protesting with fellow civil rights activist Dolores Huerta in 1999, against USC’s failure to negotiate with workers. He stood in solidarity with USC employees partaking in a fasting movement.
In 2025, Ashley Jackson, the youngest of his six children, graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from the Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Ashley announced in 2025 that she planned on creating a docuseries about her father’s legacy from her point-of-view, based on information from People Magazine.
Jackson’s death prompted many reactions from around the country, as his followers recounted their memories of his time as a civil rights activist.
“As a girl, I remember watching Rev. Jackson’s speech at the Democratic Convention with my grandmother,” said U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove in a statement to Annenberg Media. Kamlager-Dove is a USC alumna, whose district includes Culver City, Ladera Heights and Century City.
She said that her family felt that Jackson would not win the presidential election because of racial prejudice against Black Americans. However, Kamlager-Dove highlighted that his work was pivotal for young Black Americans, serving as inspiration.
“He paved the way and inspired President Barack Obama and so many other Black elects, including me,” she said. “That power to inspire is what we will be missing.”
Kimberly Smith, a journalism professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University – where Jackson graduated in 1960 – covered Jackson during his 1984 and 1988 Presidential campaigns, as well as his civil rights activism in the Carolinas.
“He left a legacy at A&T and that legacy still lives on,” Smith said. “The idea of being proud of yourself and not letting where you come from distract you from becoming a better person. That mentality, that philosophy, that’s in the DNA of most A&T students.”
Smith went on to call Jackson his “generation’s Barack Obama” and emphasized his ability to connect with his audience.
Haley Pender, a senior journalism and mass communications student with a concentration in multimedia at A&T and the editor-in-chief at The A&T Register, emphasized Jackson’s dedication to the civil rights movement and his immeasurable contributions to campus life at A&T.
“He truly just wanted to move us forward in any way he could have, and I just really am going to try and take that with me,” Pender said.
Pender added that Jackson’s legacy has inspired her to keep moving forward with her life and career.
“You’re never too young to enact change…because even to the end of his life, he continued to show up where he can for our university, for other communities of color, and I feel like that was just a real testament of who he was as a person,” Pender said.
Jackson is survived by his wife Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson and his six children Santita, Jesse Jr., Jonathan, Yusef, Jacqueline and Ashley.