Jackson RIP
By 
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, America’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which said that Mr. Jackson “died peacefully,” but did not give a cause.
“His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity,” the statement said.
Mr. Jackson was hospitalized in November for treatment of a rare and particularly severe neurodegenerative condition, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to the advocacy organization he founded, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In 2017, he said that he had Parkinson’s disease, which in its early stages can produce similar effects on bodily movements and speech.
Mr. Jackson, who was celebrated for his impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten, picked up the mantle of Dr. King after his assassination in 1968. He ran for president twice, long before Mr. Obama’s election in 2008, but he never achieved either the commanding moral stature of Dr. King or the ultimate political triumph attained by Mr. Obama.
I don’t like that comparison to Obama and King because it undersells what a unique figure Jackson cut in American political history… it’s very difficult to explain his significance to folks who did not live through the 1980s and early 1990s.