“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, voiceless, and overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement on Tuesday.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Baptist preacher and two-time presidential candidate whose powerful oratory and populist ideology spurred the Civil Rights Movement following the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., passed away on Tuesday, according to his family.”Our father was a servant leader — not only for our family, but for the oppressed, voiceless, and overlooked all over the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.

Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist, said in a statement that “our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices” and paid respect to a man who “carried history in his footsteps and hope in his voice.”Reverend Jackson stood up to any attack on dignity, from apartheid abroad to domestic injustice. “His voice echoed in boardrooms and jail cells,” Sharpton claimed.

A cause of death was not immediately provided. Jackson’s relatives stated that he died quietly, surrounded by his loved ones.

According to his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he was hospitalized in November after suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) for more than a decade. PSP impairs patients’ ability to walk and swallow, which can lead to serious problems.

Jackson stated that he had Parkinson’s in 2017. He was treated as an outpatient at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago for at least two years before disclosing his illness to the public.

The Rainbow PUSH Coalition will have public observances in Chicago, and future plans for life celebration events will be announced, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Jackson family.

Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and rose to fame during the Civil Rights movement, marching alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His activity lasted decades, including two bids for the Democratic presidential candidacy in 1984 and 1988.

Rev. Jesse Jackson calls the State Department’s decision to revoke the visa of white South African boxer Kallie Knotze a “human rights victory” and praises the Carter administration for continuing the battle for human rights in 1979.

Jackson hailed the State Department’s 1979 decision to revoke the visa of white South African boxer Kallie Knoetze as a “human rights victory” and praised the Carter administration for continuing to fight for human rights.In the first run, Bettmann received over 18% of the primary vote and won several primaries and caucuses (Source: Bettmann Archive).

“Merely by being black and forcing other candidates to consider his very real potential to garner black votes, which they need, Jackson has had an impact,” read a 1984 New York Times profile.

Four years later, he expanded on his record by winning 11 primaries and caucuses.

Jackson began his career as an activist for the Congress of Racial Equality, engaging in marches and sit-ins. He graduated from North Carolina A&T State University with a sociology degree. During his divinity studies at Chicago Theological Seminary, he began mobilizing student support for King and marched with him from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.

Jackson soon joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, and began working full-time with King. King praised him as a young man in charge of the SCLC’s economic development and empowerment initiative, Operation Breadbasket: “We knew he was going to do a good job, but he’s done better than a good job,” King stated.

Jackson, who was with King at the motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was slain in 1968, refused to give up after King’s death. He expanded his goal for Black emancipation by establishing People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, in 1971. He quit from the SCLC that year to form PUSH after being suspended; he was accused of manipulating the SCLC for personal benefit. PUSH sought to improve the economic conditions of Black communities across the country before expanding into politics with direct action campaigns and social areas such as a weekly radio show and awards for Black people.

Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign sparked the formation of the National Rainbow Coalition, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s policies while advocating for social programs, voting rights, and affirmative action. PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition joined in 1996, forming the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

His 1984 campaign infuriated some Democrats, who claimed his policies were too left-wing and would harm the party in the general election. Jackson rejected their worries.

“The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and near-poor back on the front of the American agenda,” Jackson remarked of the 1984 campaign in a 1996 interview with PBS. “This is a dangerous mission, and yet it’s a necessary mission!”

In a Washington Post interview, Jackson referred to Jewish people as “hymies” and New York City as “hymietown,” which harmed his 1984 campaign. He originally denied making the remarks, accusing Jews of targeting his campaign. He then admitted to using the slur and issued an impassioned apologies.

Jackson was chosen as one of Washington’s two “shadow senators” in 1991 to advocate for D.C. statehood, and he served one term.

Jackson also assisted in the release of other arrested and apprehended Americans around the world. In 1999, he arranged the release of three US servicemen detained in Yugoslavia. A year later, President Bill Clinton gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his services.

Jackson’s other accomplishments included securing the release of a US Navy pilot from Syrian captors after his plane was shot down in 1984, at least 16 Americans jailed in Cuba in 1984, 700 women and children from Iraq in 1990, and two Gambian Americans from prison in the West African nation in 2012.

Jackson received numerous tributes from important personalities throughout the political spectrum.

In a post to X, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., described Jackson as “a legendary voice for the voiceless.” Former President Joe Biden stated that Jackson would be remembered as “a man of God and of the people” who “believed in his bones the promise of America: that we are all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.”

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement saying Jackson “never stopped working for a better America with brighter tomorrows.” In a statement, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama reflected on Jackson’s advocacy, stating that it “laid the foundation” for their presidential campaign. “We stood on his shoulders,” they explained.

In a post to Truth Social on Tuesday, President Donald Trump described Jackson as a “good man” with personality, tenacity, and “street smarts.””He adored his family, and to them I extend my heartfelt condolences,” Trump wrote in the tweet. “Jesse will be missed!”

In recent decades, Jackson has been outspoken regarding prominent politicians, including Obama. He denounced Trump’s presidency, claiming, “Fifty years of civil rights have been threatened.” Jackson endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2020 presidential race, and Sanders praised him on the campaign trail.

“It is one of the honors of my life to be supported by a man who has put his life on the line for the last 50 years fighting for justice,” Sanders said at the time.