By Miriam Raftery

Image: Jesse Jackson addresses United Nations in 2012; US Mission Geneva. Creative Commons license 2.0

February 18, 2026 (San Diego) –San Diego leaders are praising the life and legacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and protégé of Martin Luther King Jr., who died yesterday after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.  

Rev. Shane Harris, a San Diego-based civil rights leader, remembers Jackson as “a giant of the civil rights movement and a relentless voice for justice.” Harris worked and marched alongside Jackson.  “He never stopped pushing this nation to be better, fairer, and more compassionate,” he said. “His legacy is written in the lives he touched, the doors he helped open, and the hope he carried forward.”