Rev. Jesse Jackson Dies at 84

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a charismatic preacher who became the leading voice of Black American aspirations in the years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was the first African American to gain significant traction as a presidential candidate, died Tuesday. He was 84.

His family announced the death in a statement, which did not say where or how he died. Jackson had initially been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015. Years later, he learned he had progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological disorder that affects movement.

At the height of his influence, Jackson was widely regarded as the nation’s preeminent civil rights leader, a ubiquitous presence before the television cameras. He showed up at protests and marches across the country to champion civil rights and social justice. And when civil disorder broke out — as it did after King’s assassination in 1968 and, decades later, after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 — he urged restraint and nonviolence. 

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.