The children of Reverend Jesse L. Jackson shared reflections on his life and legacy during a private service and made it clear that death does not end his story and that the struggle for civil rights will continue at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, where their father’s unfinished social justice agenda remains intact.
With matriarch Jacqueline Jackson seated in the audience Saturday, March 7, watching her children hold hands as if to give each other strength, each Jackson child — Rep. Jonathan Jackson, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., attorney Yusef Jackson, and daughters Santita Jackson, Dr. Jacqueline Jackson II and Ashley Jackson — spoke of the love they have for their father.
Initially diagnosed in 2017 with Parkinson’s disease, the two-time presidential candidate died of Progressive supranuclear palsy on Tuesday, February 17, at his South Side home surrounded by family.
Santita Jackson sang “To God Be the Glory,” receiving thunderous applause from the multiracial, standing-room-only crowd at the private homegoing service at Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters, founded by Jackson in 1971.
Acknowledging the presence of his mother and thanking Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, and Félix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for honoring his father, Rep. Jackson described him as a “legend, a miracle (and) a special occurrence.”
Saying he is not a fan of the current president, Rep. Jackson did give President Donald Trump credit for saying his father was a “force of nature.” Jackson added, “Had we not seen him with our own eyes, future generations would scarcely believe such a man ever truly existed in the simplicity of flesh and blood.”
Given the social constraints of this country, Jackson said his father was born with several X’s on his back.
“Rev. Jackson was born to be a nobody, and the politics of his circumstance had pre-selected him to die that way.”
Jackson said his father “was conceived in rejection, born into poverty, grew up in a segregated part of America” wrapped in hatred and “reared in the arms of a nation that was so saturated with hypocrisy that it had the nerve to treat him upon birth like he was a criminal. They had stolen his ancestors 400 years ago.”
His father “was too tall to hide, too poor to be included, too Black to be respected, and the only thing that saved him was the fact that he was too bold and outspoken to be ignored,” he said as mourners applauded.
He said his father was never supposed to be the kind of person who headlined events and hosted world leaders at memorial services, but ironically “somebody forgot to tell Rev. Jesse Jackson that.” But with time and God’s will, he said, his father “would not be denied.”
Rev. Jackson truly believed in his mantras, “I Am Somebody,” and “You can be born in the slum [ghetto], but the slum [ghetto] doesn’t have to be born in you.”
Despite coming from a humble background, Rev. Jackson ran for president in the 1984 Democratic primaries, receiving about 3.5 million votes nationwide. In 1988, he expanded that support dramatically, receiving nearly 7 million votes and about 29 percent of the Democratic primary vote, the strongest presidential showing by an African American candidate at the time.
Jackson did not stop there. In 1989, he moved to Washington, ran, and was elected as one of two unpaid District of Columbia “shadow senators.” He received more than 100,000 votes, about 46 percent of the ballots cast. Jackson fought hard for D.C. voting rights and statehood. That issue remains part of his unfinished social justice agenda and one his supporters — and perhaps his sons — continue to pursue.
Rep. Jackson said his father’s civil rights career began when he was just 18, while on break from the University of Illinois. Returning home to Greenville, South Carolina, he attempted to obtain a book from a white-only public library but was told to leave because he was Black.
He promised he would return.
Jackson kept his promise, gathered seven other Black students — later known as the Greenville Eight — returned to the library, and were arrested. Their protest ultimately led to the integration of that library and others in Greenville. That act of racism ignited what would become his six-decade fight for civil and human rights.
Back then and now, his son said, “Jesse Jackson would not be denied, and in spite of what America thought of him at his birth, he stood like a honeybee at the door of the honey hive only thinking of the sweetness,” overcoming “every obstacle he faced in his life.”
“The fact that he walked with kings and negotiated with presidents cannot be used to measure the depth and breadth of the vastness of his significance,” said Rep. Jackson.
Quoting the Bible, Jackson added, “Whoever gets to be the greatest among you, let them be a servant…. My father was touched by the mighty Lord.”
As he stood looking down at his father’s casket, Jackson said, “These are not the bones of some raging narcissist who only cares about himself, nor are these the arresting hands of a man who uses cruelty to make a name for himself.
“These are not the quiet remains of someone who took more out of life than what he gave back, nor will it ever be his lasting legacy,” he told a cheering crowd.
“My father tried to help somebody…love somebody. My father tried to let every child know that he is somebody. My father wanted to make sure that the world he was born into would be better than the world he was leaving. He tried to make the crooked ways straight.”
“I want the world to know that my father believed in love,” said Jackson. “He believed in the dignity of all human beings. He believed that just because you were born in the slums, the slums were not born in you.
“For the children on the reservations, in the barrios, in the ghettos, he was speaking to you. My father believed in America more than America believed in itself.”
“My father honored the words of the Declaration of Independence more than the men who signed it.”
He said his father honored the ideals of the Constitution of the United States more than many of those who signed it, noting that some were slaveholders.
“My father was attacked for talking about diversity. He was vilified for his stand on equality, and if half the people who wanted to kill him had their way, we would have never seen a Rainbow Coalition believing in multiracial harmony. He understood that we all have a constitutional right to be included.”
Reflecting on his childhood, Rep. Jackson said none of his peers had fathers who demonstrated and participated in peace activities every weekend. Jackson said it embarrassed him as a child.
“We were hauled upon this stage marching every weekend, boycotting corporations, demonstrating, seeking peaceful solutions,” recalled Jackson.
“I didn’t care for the protest movements much myself,” Jackson said, and he did not understand his father’s fight against economic exclusion and the fight for economic inclusion.
He also did not understand South Africa’s fight against apartheid when his father marched on the South African Consulate on Michigan Avenue demanding an end to that racist system.
“My father’s arrest record embarrassed me.”
“It was a great sense of pain for me to hear people talk about my father, but that was only because I was a child…, but when I became a man, I put those childish things away.”
That was then, but today Jackson said he is proud to have been arrested with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, fighting for voting rights.
As an adult, Jackson said he is proud his father went to jail standing up for the rights of others. He said his father “made a difference in the lives of millions of people.”
Today, Rep. Jackson said he is proud of his father — his friend, his pastor, his hero and his biggest cheerleader — and political adviser.
“I saw a man at his best, and I am proud to call him my father.”
Referring to last Friday’s People’s Homegoing at the House of Hope, Jackson said an older Black woman who had just gotten off work took his hand and said she voted for him because of his father and assumed his son would have the same DNA.
“Whatever he had in his DNA is in me, too,” Jackson told the crowd. “We are going to keep on fighting to be peacemakers, keep on fighting for civil rights.
“No matter who is in the White House, we are going to stand for diversity, equity and inclusion so that everybody can have participation in this country,” vowed Rep. Jackson.
“You can say whatever you want about my father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, but one thing you have to admit is that he shook up this country and shook up this world,” Rep. Jackson said, receiving prolonged applause.
He said his father “made sure that American corporations were able to share some benefits with those who were locked out and excluded, those of us who had experienced American segregation, American apartheid and had been excluded from reciprocal trade agreements.”
“Jesse Jackson was not a politician,” his son Jonathan said.
“He was a perfect servant. Don’t let that fact change you, that he changed the Democratic Party.”