Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
By Chido Nwangwu. Follow on X (Twitter) @Chido247
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family, painfully but proudly wrote in their announcement of his death, early that morning of Tuesday, February 17, 2026.
I believe that the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s historic roles in the battles of his time to “bend the arc of justice” towards the liberation of the oppressed, the empowerment of the exploited and dispossessed, will remain commendable chapters in any factual, historical chronicles of these United States and worldwide.
To millions of people around the world, Rev. Jackson, civil rights leader, pan-Africanist, and ordained Baptist minister, as a matter of fact, achieved a legacy of fighting for the rights of all people, all people, not only for Blacks during his decades of advocacy and activism against racism, supremacist zealotries and rights. He did not just stand up to fight for Blacks/African-Americans, he fought hard, also for Whites and “Brown” people (Latinos).
It is such a broad and inclusive array of interests that led to the establishment of his political and socio-economic vehicle, which he named “The Rainbow Coalition.”
Rev. Jackson’s elevated vision and message, in his peculiar and colorful words, sought to empower and uplift the “desperate, damned, disinherited, disrespected, and despised,” across America. He led beyond racial and economic lines. The man waged the battle for labor rights and joined workers on picket lines and in the seemingly endless fight against poverty. Amidst all the monumental progress, there’s substantial poverty in many parts of the United States.
Jackson understood and in some ways, knew better than most of his generation and those before him, how to extend the message of the late, great mentor, Martin Luther King, Jnr. In a practical sense, too, served as a historical bridge between the message of racial equality fundamentals in Dr. King’s vision and demands for economic justice to Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American elected President of the United States. Obama was elected the 44th President, on November 4, 2008. Jackson was a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. He was 84.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a tribute stated that “We were friends for almost fifty years since we met in 1977 at the 20th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock Central High. … Reverend Jackson championed human dignity and helped create opportunities for countless people to live better lives. Throughout it all, he kept marching to the music of his conscience, his convictions, and his causes.”
As a global champion for rights, he was very involved in the long-drawn but worthy battle against apartheid in South Africa.
As I noted in my forthcoming book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity, I met Rev. Jackson a couple of times, here in the U.S., in Senegal and in South Africa (in Johannesburg, Cape Town and at Mandela’s official residence during former President Bill Clinton’s visit to South Africa. We visited, among other places, the prison cell where the great Nelson Mandela was unjustly jailed at the ignoble Robben Island operated by the goons of apartheid. Houston’s late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, business executive Dr. Kase Lawal and several others were at the event.
On Jackson, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former trade unionist, in his tribute recalls that “His campaigns for an end to apartheid included disinvestment from the apartheid economy and challenging the support the regime enjoyed in certain circles and institutions internationally. We are deeply indebted to the energy, principled clarity, and personal risk with which he supported our struggle and campaigned for freedom and equality in other parts of the world.”
I applaud the tribute by the Jackson family regarding “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
The 2017 tribute by Rev. Al Sharpton about Rev. Jackson’s unique roles in public service is worthy of recall: “I watched him, I thought about the greatness of this man. How he continued Martin Luther King’s movement for justice, how he cemented it in the North and made the King movement truly national. … He changed the nation. He served in ways he never got credit. No one in our lifetime served longer and stronger. We pray for him, because he’s given his life for us.”
Rest in peace, big Brother, Jesse Jackson!
- Dr. Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming 2026 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., is the Founder of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He has appeared as an analyst on CNN, Al Jazeera, SKYnews, and served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. Follow on X (Twitter) @Chido247
