Reverend Jesse Jackson dies at age 84

By Omolade Adegbuyi

Civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson has died. He was aged 84.

For more than five decades,Rev Jackson stood like a tower in the civil rights movements that began years preceding his birth. He was known to have visited Nigeria in the past.

He rose to prominence in the 1960s alongside Martin Luther King Junior and other black Americans who fought against inequality and segregation of black Americans and other marginalised communities.

Jackson was a popular American civil rights actor and politician.

He was also ordained Minister at the Baptist minister.

Jackson was a close ally of Martin Luther King Jr.

They both worked together during the civil rights movement emerging as an outstanding civil rights leaders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

From 1991 to 1997, he became a shadow delegate and shadow senator for the District of Columbia.

His son is the U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson and former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.

He was with Dr Martin Luther King, the day he was assassinated and was one of the first persons to get to him after he was shot.

During his life time, he was a trailblazer and a two time Democratic Party Presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988.
He was feasibly moved to tears the day Barrack Obama won his election, declared the first black American President, something he was glad took place in his lifetime.

His life was dedicated to civil right during American most turbulence times.

The legacy is that of steadfastness, activism and giving voices to millions to reshape American landscape.

Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina to Helen Burns, an 18-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Louis Robinson. Helen died in 2015 while Robinson died in 1997.