Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday ordered public buildings across the city and state to fly flags at half-staff in honor of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died at 84 after rising from an upstart Chicago organizer to pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon and Chicago-based presidential candidate, dies at 84
Their announcements joined messages from political leaders across Illinois who mourned Jackson’s death and vowed to carry on the decades-long movement he upheld after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his mentor.
“Rev. Jesse Jackson was a giant of the civil rights movement,” Pritzker wrote in a post on X. “He broke down barriers, inspired generations, and kept hope alive. Our state, nation, and world are better due to his years of service. I’m ordering flags to half-mast to honor him. May his memory be a blessing.”
Johnson’s statement nodded to Jackson’s ascent in Chicago, from building up the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization to founding the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
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“Rev. Jackson’s mission always centered the strength and liberation of our Black community, but his mission always extended to all who needed empowerment by cultivating a rainbow of power that could shine through every storm,” Johnson wrote on X. “I ask you to anchor your hope in action to honor Rev. Jackson’s enduring contributions. He believed in you, and found hope in humanity. Do something today to keep hope alive.”
Former President Barack Obama celebrated Jackson’s career in activism in a tribute saying, “We stood on his shoulders.” Obama and his wife, Michelle, a South Shore native, both came up in Chicago organizing before Barack Obama’s political career began.
“For more than 60 years, Reverend Jackson helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history,” Obama wrote on X. “Michelle got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager. And in his two historic runs for president, he laid the foundation for my own campaign.”
During Obama’s famous 2008 acceptance speech in Grant Park, Jackson wept as he learned that America had elected its first Black president.
The civil rights icon’s death begs the question of who — if anyone — can carry the torch he wielded for more than half a century in local and national politics. His record as an effective agitator for Black advancement positioned him as a go-to adviser for Chicago politicians who sought his endorsement.
Asked about the void Jackson’s passing will leave, Ald. William Hall, 6th Ward, said he bequeaths a generation of leaders a simple blueprint: “Identify the problem, protest, change the policy.”
Hall was once Jackson’s “body man,” then a field director for Rainbow/PUSH. He said the titan had been “family” as he followed Jackson to four different continents. Jackson was “more loved away from Chicago, more loved away from America,” Hall said, a reception he likened to biblical prophets spurned at home.
“He treated me like a son, allowing me to make mistakes. Never criticized me, never was critical of me. Just kept challenging me,” Hall said Tuesday at City Hall.
Fellow South Side Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th Ward, recalled visiting Jackson’s Black Expo as a teenager. She said she would never forget seeing him there, “big afro, big head full of curly hair.”
“It just gave me such a sense of pride to see someone like him stand up, who had marched with Martin Luther King, to come to our community and give us the exposure,” Harris said. “Here’s a Black man who had a vision, and he exposed Black folks to that vision.”
Throughout Tuesday, Illinois lawmakers talked of past encounters with Jackson that inspired their personal journeys.
Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner, whose Chicago district includes Rainbow/PUSH headquarters in Kenwood, said he would “never forget” how Jackson showed up for his family after a highly publicized tragedy in 2008. Buckner’s cousin, the actress and singer Jennifer Hudson, lost three members of their family in a triple homicide.
“He came to our family church to be with us. And he didn’t come as a national figure. He came as a shepherd. He prayed for us. He prayed with us. And somehow, in the middle of unimaginable grief, he made space for comfort,” Buckner wrote in a statement. “He had an extraordinary way of sitting with pain; not trying to outtalk it, not trying to outrun it, but standing in it with you until you could breathe again.”
Democratic state Rep. Rita Mayfield of Gurnee said Jackson helped organize a community response to the death of her cousin who was beaten by police in North Chicago.
“We had Martin Luther King Jr., we had Rosa Parks. But you cannot talk about history without mentioning Jesse Sr.,” Mayfield said.
In an interview in his office in the Illinois State Capitol, Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch called Jackson an “American icon” before honoring him on the House floor as someone whose “voice of moral clarity was heard across the globe.”
“Cuba to Kenya. Belfast to Belgrade. End conflicts to protect human rights and to inspire change rooted in the common bonds of humanity,” Welch said. “As we mourn the loss, we are simultaneously empowered by his legacy of showing people their great power.”
Welch, the first Black speaker of the Illinois House, told the Tribune he hopes the legislature can pass a bill bearing Jackson’s name that would require Illinois high schools to provide students with the opportunity to register to vote in a nonpartisan setting.
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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul reflected on growing up a block away from the Rainbow/Push offices and bringing his kids there when they were young so they could glean the same inspiration as him.
“Rev. Jackson had an impact on my life since I was a young boy,” Raoul wrote in a statement. “The words ‘I am somebody!’ resonated with me, giving hope of what I may one day achieve by way of service to others.”
Johnson’s predecessors, former mayors Lori Lightfoot and Rahm Emanuel, also paid their respects in Tuesday statements.
“Words are inadequate to fully capture the essence of this man — iconic leader, unapologetic champion for the downtrodden, and vulnerable, barrier breaker, diplomat and strategist extraordinaire,” Lightfoot wrote on X. “Never to be forgotten, you have earned your well deserved rest in the bosom of the angels.”
Emanuel nodded to being “fortunate to have a front-row seat” to some of Jackson’s historical fights.
“Whether it was in the White House or Chicago City Hall, I never knew Jesse to walk into a room simply to be welcomed — he walked in to make sure others would be welcomed after him,” Emanuel wrote. “Ours was a relationship built on advocacy: the push and pull of someone who never let power get too comfortable, who asked the hard questions, demanded the honest answers, and reminded those of us in positions of responsibility exactly who we were supposed to be serving.”
Current and former members of Chicago’s congressional delegation also recounted Jackson’s inspiration.
Ex-U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush wrote in a statement that Jackson “literally saved my life” in 1969, after an arrest warrant was issued for the then-leader within the Illinois Black Panthers following the slaying of Fred Hampton. Rush retired in 2023 and was succeeded by Jackson’s son Jonathan.
“I turned myself in that day, and Reverend Jackson said they’d better return me in the same condition I was in on that stage,” Rush wrote. “If it were not for Reverend Jackson, Renault Robinson, and others, I would have been dead. Since then, Reverend Jackson has been a constant presence in both my public and private life.”
U.S. Rep Jesús “Chuy” García, part of Mayor Harold Washington’s Rainbow Coalition, credited Jackson for playing a “crucial role” in the election of Chicago’s first Black mayor.
In his public appearances over the past decade, Jackson focused on his longstanding message of building a multiracial coalition to champion the downtrodden.
He continued advocating for social justice causes such as Black Lives Matter in his final years, joining protests for what he told the Tribune was a “massive quest for justice” after Chicago police in 2015 released a video of a white officer gunning down a Black teenager, Laquan McDonald. And he uplifted Black candidates and elected officials, among them Johnson and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
Jackson’s signature call-and-response was a common presence at local protests in the wake of the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. His catchphrase “I am somebody,” which first caught fire in the 1970s as an unapologetic celebration of Black people, continued reverberating during his appearances at demonstrations where he commanded moments of solemnity from otherwise rowdy crowds on the streets of Chicago and beyond.
The Tribune’s Olivia Olander contributed reporting. Olander, O’Connor and Gorner reported from Springfield.