Reverend Jesse Jackson, who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after King, has died at 84

Iconic Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson and advocate for justice, has passed away at 84, leaving a lasting legacy.

The Rev Jesse L. Jackson, a protege of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr and two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader’s assassination, died on Tuesday (February 17, 2026). He was 84.

His daughter, Santita Jackson, confirmed that Jackson died at home, surrounded by family.

As a young organiser in Chicago, Jackson was called to meet with King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis shortly before King was killed and he publicly positioned himself thereafter as King’s successor.

Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad, advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he channelled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.

And when he declared, “I am Somebody,” in a poem he often repeated, he sought to reach people of all colours. “I may be poor, but I am Somebody; I may be young; but I am Somebody; I may be on welfare, but I am Somebody,” Jackson intoned.

It was a message he took literally and personally, having risen from obscurity in the segregated South to become America’s best-known civil rights activist since King.