Civil Rights Leader Rev. Jesse Jackson Hospitalized

Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson has been hospitalized, according to an announcement by the activist organization that he founded.

In a statement released on the evening of Nov. 12, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said that Jackson, 84, had been admitted to hospital.

“The family appreciates all prayers at this time,” the statement said.

The coalition added that he was under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative condition.

The reverend had been managing the symptoms of his condition for a decade, the group said. Doctors had initially diagnosed it as Parkinson’s disease in 2017, but in April, they confirmed it was PSP, it added.

Jackson was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and rose to become a leading figure for black America during the civil rights movement after King’s assassination.

He was widely considered King’s protege. King had appointed Jackson in 1966 as the first director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s job placement program, dubbed Operation Breadbasket, in Chicago. He grew the operation to have a presence in 17 different cities.

Jackson was ordained a Baptist minister in 1968. He unsuccessfully ran twice for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988.

Jackson went on to found his own civil rights group, People United to Save Humanity, in Chicago’s South Side in 1971, which later became the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

The group worked to encourage minority hiring in the corporate world and to encourage communities of color to register to vote and be heard in the political process. He would go on to become one of the first to suggest reparations payments to descendants of black slaves.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Jackson had a complicated relationship with former President Barack Obama, whose families knew each other well, coming out of Chicago.

In a hot mic moment on Fox News during Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, Jackson was heard whispering, “See, Barack been umm talking down to black people on this faith based. I wanna cut his nuts off.” He later apologized for his comments and expressed regret.

Jackson, whose candidacy had been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, attended the funeral of Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez in 2013 and praised the leader.

During the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer of 2020, Jackson criticized protesters in Chicago for “pillaging, robbing, and looting,” calling it “humiliating, embarrassing, and morally wrong.”

Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer Ariel Atkins replied that Jackson “has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter” and “can keep his opinions to himself.”

Jackson stepped down in 2023 from leadership of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition amid health issues.

“I am somebody. Green or yellow, brown, black or white, we’re all perfect in God’s eyes. Everybody is somebody. Stop the violence. Save the children. Keep hope alive,” he said at the time.