Renowned civil rights activist and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is dead.
Jackson who ran for the United States presidency in the 1980s, to the 1990s, died at age 84 on Tuesday, the family said in a statement.
According to the statement, he had been in declining health for a decade; in 2017 he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease two years earlier, but last April revealed that it was actually misdiagnosed progressive supranuclear palsy, a condition also affecting bodily movements.
He stepped down as president of PUSH in July 2023, citing health concerns. Rev. Jackson appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024, when he was presented to the crowd after a video celebrating his life, but did not speak.
