by Kevin RobillardBuzzFeedHuffPost Contributor The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who bridged the era of Martin Luther King Jr. with the modern world and whose two presidential runs in the 1980s set the stage for today's progressive movement, died early Tuesday, his family announced. He was 84. Bettmann / Getty Images "Our father was a servant leader - not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world," the family said in a statement. "We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. 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."The statement did not list a cause of death but noted that Jackson died peacefully, surrounded by family.

Jackson was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2013. His diagnosis changed to progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurodegenerative disorder, in April 2025, his Rainbow Coalition/PUSH organization said.

He was hospitalized in November for about two weeks and later also received care at an acute nursing facility for the condition. The Rev. Al Sharpton paid tribute to Jackson in a statement reported by NBC News, writing that "our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices." Bob Riha Jr / Getty Images Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton. "Reverend Jackson stood wherever dignity was under attack, from apartheid abroad to injustice at home. His voice echoed in boardrooms and in jail cells. His presence shifted rooms. His faith never wavered," Sharpton wrote.

Born in segregated Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson was a prodigy who would become nationally known by his early 20s, become a controversial figure in both white and Black America by the age of 30, help resolve international crises in his 40s, host a CNN show and become a presidential confidant in his 50s, and become a respected elder statesman in the new millennium.

An electrifying speaker, Jackson could never escape the criticism that he was more flash than follow-through. Other politicians, even ideological allies, viewed him as untrustworthy and ego-driven. Conservatives argued Jackson added fuel to the fire of racial divides for his own benefit. Electoral success eluded him - his only successful campaign was for a wholly symbolic office in Washington, D.C. But his campaigns for president in 1984 and 1988 helped create the image of what the modern Democratic Party seeks to be but rarely seems to achieve: a multiracial coalition of voters dedicated to economic fairness. "If there was no Jesse Jackson, in my view, there never would have been a President Barack Obama," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in 2020 while campaigning alongside Jackson, a man he has repeatedly cited as an inspiration. However, Jackson, who campaigned as an unflinching economic progressive and critic of American foreign policy, also set the stage for Sanders' own runs for the presidency. via Associated Press Jackson embraces Bernie Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, Vermont, after the latter endorsed him for president in 1988. Jackson was the son of an unwed teenage mother who grew up across the street from his father's legitimate family, a rejection that friends told reporters still stung decades later. He became class president and a star athlete in high school, and later played college football at the University of Illinois and North Carolina A&T. He graduated from the latter school in 1964 with a degree in sociology, also serving as class president there.

After participating in a sit-in at a public library in Greenville while in college, he moved to Chicago to attend divinity school and become more involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He participated in marches from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama and established a branch of the King-led Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Chicago. He was later appointed to lead SCLC's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket, which organized boycotts of businesses the organization believed did not promote economic opportunities for African Americans. Chicago Tribune TNS A young Jackson works with residents of Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects in 1970. Jackson's evident ambition and drive impressed and occasionally annoyed King, but they chafed other civil rights leaders. His actions following King's assassination in 1968 would lead to a permanent split between him and King's family. Jackson, who was standing below the balcony where King was shot, appeared on television the next day wearing a shirt stained with King's blood. Other SCLC leaders were appalled, and Coretta Scott King never forgave Jackson. In 1971, Ralph Abernathy and others pushed Jackson out of SCLC leadership, even though he argued he was merely continuing King's desire to focus on economic justice. Jackson, in a 2008 interview with CNN, defended his actions in the wake of King's death as those of a traumatized young man: "I