The Revered Jesse Jackson Senior is dead. The famed civil rights activist, ordained Baptist minister and former presidential candidate was 84.
His family announced his death overnight, saying he'd passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones.
Jackson had been dealing with a progressive neurodegenerative disease for the past decade.
In a statement, they remembered Jackson as an icon whose "unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions." It goes on to say, "we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by."
He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in 1984 and 1988 and did better than any African American had done until Barack Obama won the nomination in 2008.
Jackson started the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996, which was a merging of his two civil rights nonprofits, the National Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH.
The South Carolina native began pushing for civil rights as an undergraduate when he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma, Alabama in 1965.
Jackson was in Memphis when King was assassinated in 1968.
Before starting his own nonprofit groups, Jackson started Operation Breadbasket, which was part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain and suspended by the organization. He resigned his position in 1971. Jackson put a spotlight on apartheid in South Africa.
He also advocated for the Palestinians to have their own state in the Middle East.