WeeklySA_AdminACTIVISM: World leaders, former U.S. presidents and thousands of mourners gathered in Chicago to celebrate the life and legacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights champion who spent more than six decades fighting for equality and justice…
By Own Correspondent
Thousands gathered at the House of Hope megachurch on Chicago’s South Side for a moving home-going service celebrating the life of civil rights icon Rev Jesse Jackson, whose decades-long struggle for equality reshaped American politics and inspired movements around the world.
Jackson, who died at the age of 84 after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, was remembered by global political leaders, activists and entertainers as a fearless advocate who carried forward the vision of the civil rights movement.
Among those paying tribute were former US presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, as well as former vice-president Kamala Harris. Musical tributes were delivered by Chicago-born singer Jennifer Hudson and gospel stars BeBe Winans and Marvin Winans, giving the service the spirit of celebration often associated with African-American “homegoing” traditions.
Obama described Jackson as a “born leader who rose above despair,” recalling how he chose the difficult path of public struggle rather than personal success.
Biden followed Obama in paying tribute to Jackson.
“Jesse was dedicated with every fibre in his being to redeeming the soul of America,” the former US president said.
Biden added that he and Jackson disagreed at times, but he admired his “passion, the courage of his convictions”.
You know, his courage inspired a hell of a lot of us.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson took a moment during his remarks to relate a funny recent memory of Jackson.
“Rev. Jackson may have been the most competitive individual I had ever met,” Johnson told the crowd.
He said a few years ago he had met with Jackson at a church on the West Side.
“At the time, Lamar Jackson was on his way to becoming the MVP of the National Football League,” the mayor recalled, “and I looked at Reverend and I said, ‘Now there’s a Jackson that’s really making a name for himself.’
And he, you know, Reverend did not like that, and he looked at me and he said, ‘You know, I played that position.’”
“And he said, ‘You know I was better than Lamar Jackson,’” Johnson recalled. “True story, he said, ‘He might be taller, faster and stronger, but I’m better than him.”
Jackson’s son, Yusef, who is one of the civil rights leader’s six children, took to the stage to pay tribute to his father.
He told the crowd his dad “occupied many spaces in our lives, in this nation and in the world”.
“For many of us, our beloved leader. For others, our brother. For so, so many – our friend.”
He added: “His body of work spans more than six decades, so vast that no single homegoing service can fully capture it – but it’s both an honour and a heavy responsibility to try.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is also expected to deliver keynote address at the funeral at the request of the Jackson family. Jackson was recognised for his long-standing solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle.
Jackson made several significant visits to South Africa during and after the apartheid era, with his first, high-profile visit occurring in 1979 following the death of Steve Biko. He returned in 1990 to mark Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and later visited a free South Africa in 2010.
Jackson’s activism began in the segregated American South, where he challenged racial barriers as a young student in South Carolina. He was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 8 1941. His mother, Helen Burns Struggs, was 16 and unmarried and gave him the name Jesse Burns. In his teenage years, his mother married Charles Jackson, and Jackson took his new stepfather’s surname.
Dorris Wright, a former classmate of Jackson’s who was one of the “Greenville Eight” along with him, told Here & Now that after their action, “the library was shut down, I think, for about a week or ten days. And then when they reopened, they reopened it to everybody.”
Five years later, Jackson marched alongside Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and went on to become one of the most influential voices in American politics, twice running for the US presidency in the 1980s.
His body lay in state earlier in South Carolina before returning to Chicago, the city where he built the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organisation through which he championed civil rights, economic justice and political participation.
Jackson will be laid to rest at Chicago’s historic Oak Woods Cemetery, joining other icons of Black American history.
Jackson is survived by five children with his wife of more than 60 years, Jacqueline, another daughter, and countless figures who were inspired by his leadership. – NPR/Fullview/WSAM
