Barack Obama Honors The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Says He And Michelle ‘Stood On His Shoulders’

The former president took to social media on Tuesday to thank the civil rights leader for both personal and professional reasons.

Barack Obama took to social media on Tuesday to honor the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whom he called a “true giant.”

Jackson died Tuesday at the age of 84, and the former president said he and his wife, Michelle Obama, were “deeply saddened” by the news for reasons that were both personal and professional.

“For more than 60 years, Reverend Jackson helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history,” he said in an official statement. “From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect.”

Obama also noted that Jackson’s work had a major effect on both him and his wife, and noted that Michelle “got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager.”

He also acknowledged that Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 “laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office of the land.” This, though, was a sore spot for Jackson, who friends have said felt Obama did not give him enough credit for those efforts.