Former Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute Tuesday to the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, honoring the longtime civil rights leader as “one of America’s greatest patriots” following his death at age 84.
Jackson died peacefully after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurodegenerative disorder, his family said in a statement. They remembered him as a “servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.”
“He spent his life summoning all of us to fulfill the promise of America and building the coalitions to make that promise real,” Harris wrote on X.
A close associate and mentee of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson emerged as one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. In the decades that followed, he mounted historic bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, finishing third and second in those contests and expanding the political coalition of voters of color, working-class Americans, and young people.
Harris reflected on Jackson’s impact on her own political journey, recalling that she displayed a “Jesse Jackson for President” bumper sticker on her car while attending the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Driving across the Bay Bridge, she said, strangers from all walks of life would signal their support — small gestures that, she noted, reflected Jackson’s broader mission of uplifting working people and strengthening democracy.
“I was proud to partner with and learn from him on this work throughout my career,” Harris said, adding that she was grateful for the time they spent together earlier this year. She described him as a “selfless leader, mentor, and friend.”
Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, an international human and civil rights organization that advanced economic justice and political empowerment.
He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, and six children. Harris said she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are praying for Jackson’s family, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the millions whose lives he touched.
“Today and every day,” she said, “we will carry forward his call to ‘Keep hope alive.’”
