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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.”
On social media, Harris added, ”Marching beside him, speaking after him, and learning from him were blessings I will always cherish. Rest well, Rev. Your work changed the world — and those of us blessed to stand beside you in the movement for change and justice will carry it on.”
Photo, right: Rev. Shane Harris with Rev. Jesse Jackson
Supervisor Joel Anderson, at the request of Harris, has asked that County flags be lowered to half-staff to honor Jackson, and to illuminate the County Administration Center tonight in rainbow hues reflecting the Rainbow PUSH Coalition that Jackson led to advance civil rights, economic justice, equality and opportunity for all, empowering people through social justice, economic opportunity and peace — particularly marginalized communities.
“Rev. Jesse Jackson was a servant leader whose tireless work illuminated paths toward justice and equality for generations,” Supervisor Anderson said in a press release. “His unwavering commitment to civil rights reminds us that love, solidarity, and progress know no bounds. In San Diego County, we honor his legacy by coming together in remembrance and celebration of his profound impact.”
According to Anderson’s press release, in recognizing Jackson’s actions, San Diego County “reaffirms its commitment to embracing the rich diversity of its residents and fostering an environment where the principles of equality, hope, and inclusion shine brightly for everyone.”
Jackson provided inspiration that helped lead to the founding of East County Magazine.
At a National Media Reform Conference in Memphis in 2007, on the anniversary of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, Jackson spoke emotionally about being on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when King was fatally shot, later cradling the slain civil rights leader in his arms.
“You are the press. You are the key to world peace,” he told a crowd of journalists and citizen bloggers at the conference, where I was in the audience. Jackson urged good people everywhere to “be the media” and tell the stories of real people whose voices are too often ignored by the mainstream media.
He recalled King’s impassioned plea to “keep hope alive” through honest reporting about economic justice, war and other issues, adding that truth will be revealed as long as “in the pitch of darkness someone lit one light.”
Inspired by Jackson’s words and those of other speakers, I returned home and started East County Magazine the next year.
Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson attended the University of Illinois, later transferring to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College, a historically Black college in Greensboro and pursued graduate studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary.
In 1960, he and seven other students known as the “Greenville Eight” held a sit-in and were arrested for protesting at a library that had refused to loan Jackson a book because he was Black.
Five years later, he marched alongside King in Selma, Alabama in support of voting rights. He left the seminary to join King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming its Chicago director and later, national leader of the SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket to help improve economic conditions for Black communities. In April 1968, he traveled with King to Memphis, where he witnessed King’s assassination. That same year, Jackson became an ordained minister.
In 1971, Jackson formed Operation PUSH to increase Black Americans’ political strength, later merging PUSH with the National Rainbow Coalition to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. He ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988. He became the first African-American to win major presidential primaries in 1988, finishing second after the Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis.
He also spoke at anti-war rallies, including a 2005 rally and march in Washington D.C. (photo, left by Miriam Raftery) that drew a half million people during the Gulf War when George W. Bush was president.
Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017, continued to show up at protests against police brutality, speaking out against the shooting in 2000 of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minnesota police officer that sparked national protests and reforms.
Jackson called those marches “hopeful signs,” adding, “We’re not going backwards.”
After contracting COVID-19 in 2021, Jackson was hospitalized and then spent weeks in a rehab facility. He stepped down as leader of the Rainbow PUSH coalition in 2023. In November 2025, he was again hospitalized, this time with progressive subranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disease.
He died on February 17, 2026 at age 84, surrounded by his family. Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and six children. Public commemorations will be scheduled in Chicago, NPR reports.
In a statement, his family said, “Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless ,and the overlooked around the world. We shared him with the world,andin return, the world became part of our extended family.”
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