US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson dies at 84

WASHINGTON: Charismatic US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated South who became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died at age 84, his family ​said in a statement on Tuesday. 'Our father was a servant leader - not only to ​our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,' the Jackson family said.
Jackson, an inspirational orator and long-time Chicagoan, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2017. His death comes at a time when the administration of Donald Trump has targeted US institutions, from museums to monuments to national parks, to remove what the president calls 'anti-American' ideology, leading to the restoration of Confederate statues and other moves that civil rights advocates say could reverse decades of social progress.
Jackson weathered a spate of controversies but remained America's pre-eminent civil rights figure for decades. He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting Black voters and many white liberals in mounting unexpectedly ⁠strong campaigns but fell short of becoming the first Black major party White House nominee. — Reuters