US civil rights giant Jesse Jackson has died aged 84

Reverend Jesse Jackson, the veteran American civil rights leader, has died aged 84 his family announced on Tuesday.

Jackson, born in South Carolina, rose to prominence in the civil rights era, standing alongside the likes of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

His activism spanned decades and included two runs for the Democratic president nomination in 1984 and 1988.

In a statement on social media, his family said he died peacefully “surrounded by his family” on Tuesday morning.

Jackson began his work as an organiser with the Congress of Racial Equality, taking part in marches and sit-ins. As a university student he rallied support for Martin Luther King.

Later, Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work alongside King. He married Jacqueline Brown, who survives him, in 1962 and they have five children.

Jackson was an outspoken supporter of former US president Barack Obama. Jackson had described Obama’s ascendency to the American presidency in 2008 as the last lap of “a 60-year race” for the black-American civil rights movement.

In 2017, Jackson announced he was battling Parkinson’s disease and began curtailing his public engagements.
But he stood with George Floyd’s family at their April 2021 press conference when a Minneapolis jury convicted Floyd’s killer. Floyd’s murder by a police officer had sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.