The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday at his home in Chicago. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which said that Mr. Jackson “died peacefully” but did not give a cause.
Mr. Jackson was hospitalized in November for treatment of a rare and particularly severe neurodegenerative condition, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to the advocacy organization he founded, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In 2017, he announced that he had Parkinson’s disease, which in its early stages can produce similar effects on bodily movements and speech.
An impassioned orator, he was a moral and political force, forming a “rainbow coalition” of poor and working-class people and seeking the presidency. His mission, he said, was “to transform the mind of America.”
