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
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