United States civil rights leader and eloquent Baptist minister, Jesse Jackson, has died at age 84, his family said in a statement on Tuesday. Jackson was raised in the segregated South and became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. The media-savvy Jackson advocated for the rights of Black Americans and other marginalised communities dating back to the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s spearheaded by his mentor King, a Baptist minister and towering social activist. Jackson weathered a spate of controversies but remained America’s preeminent civil rights figure for decades. He founded the Chicago-based civil rights groups Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition and served as Democratic President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Africa in the 1990s.

Source: Punch February 17, 2026 10:44 UTC