From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Jesse Jackson, US civil rights icon, dies at 84
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US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated South who became a close associate of Martin Luther King and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died aged 84, his family says.
“His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by,” Jackson’s family says.
“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family says.
As a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s, a dynamic Black orator and a successful mediator in international disputes, the longtime Baptist minister expanded the space for African Americans on the national stage for more than six decades.
Jackson was present for many consequential moments in the long battle for racial justice in the United States.
He was with King in Memphis in 1968 when the civil rights leader was slain; openly wept in the crowd as Barack Obama celebrated his 2008 presidential election; and stood with George Floyd’s family in 2021 after a court convicted an ex-police officer of the unarmed Black man’s murder.
He was not without controversies. In 1984, Jackson referred to New York as “Hymietown” while on the campaign trail, and later apologized. He was also tied for a number of years to Louis Farrakhan, the antisemitic leader of the Nation of Islam, and met with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat.
The Times of Israel Community.