About 3.30pm SAT my cellphone was blowing up. I was getting calls and text messages from family, friends and acquaintances from around the world. The news travelled fast: Jesse Jackson had died. He was a social activist supernova known by one name ― Jesse. If someone said Jesse, you immediately assumed they were talking about the Reverend Jesse L Jackson Snr.
When I heard the news, three thoughts came to me almost simultaneously: one biblical, one musical, one political.
The last time I saw Jesse was at Andrew Young’s 90th birthday celebration in Atlanta in 2022. Parkinson’s disease had confined him to a wheelchair. We greeted one another with a handshake and a hug. He spoke in a whisper. My heart ached. I have known Jesse for a long time. I remember when he seemed indomitable, a force of nature.
In that moment, a passage from 2 Timothy came to mind: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Jesse could tick all three boxes.
As I grew melancholy, a reporter approached him for an interview. When the klieg lights flicked on, something extraordinary happened; he came alive. Vintage Jesse. The cadence returned. The fire flickered. I smiled. The race was still in him.
The second thought that surfaced was an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement: Guide my feet, Lord, while I run this race, for I don’t want to run this race in vain.
It described Jesse perfectly. “Rev” was not a holy man in the cloistered, priestly sense. He was something else, a vessel of hope. It did seem that the Lord guided his feet, because Jesse did not run his race in vain. He was one of the most consequential leaders of his generation.
From Operation Push (People United to Serve Humanity) to his two historic presidential campaigns, Jesse reshaped the American political landscape and expanded the moral imagination of the nation.
The third thought was simple and political: Run, Jesse, Run.
That was the mantra of his 1984 presidential campaign. To those who tried to dissuade him from running because he could not win, Jesse offered an irrefutable response: “If you run, you might lose. If you don’t run, you’re guaranteed to lose.”
He did not win the presidency. But he ran with such dignity, intellectual force and moral clarity that he made millions proud. On the debate stage, he proved he belonged there. Because he ran, countless others dared to set their sights a little bit higher.
“Run” was the common thread in my thoughts. As a metaphor, it fits Jesse perfectly. He was often ahead of the pack, setting the pace, pushing the boundaries of what seemed politically possible.
After the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, Jesse emerged as a leading voice in black America, a sort of pied piper of possibility. His chant “I Am Somebody” resonated not only in African-American communities but also among oppressed people around the globe. It instilled dignity where society had denied it.
Operation Push’s economic empowerment campaigns became a blueprint for activist engagement nationwide. His presidential runs did more than “keep hope alive”; they transformed the Democratic Party and altered the status of African Americans within it.
Without Jesse’s campaigns, there is no Ron Brown as chair of the Democratic national committee, the first African American to hold that position. Without Jesse, there is no generation of black political operatives who found their breakthrough in his movement. Donna Brazile. Al Sharpton. Countless others.
And without Jesse Jackson’s audacity, one must ask: would the election of Barack Obama have been conceivable when it happened? The honest answer is no. Jesse did not just run for president. He widened the lane.
I knew of Jesse long before I met him. I came to know him during his first presidential campaign. At the time, I was senior minister at Union United Methodist Church in Boston — the most prominent African-American congregation in the region. Whenever Jesse’s travels brought him to Boston over a weekend, he often preached at Union.
When he decided to run for president, I became one of his early recruits. Our relationship deepened to the point that, after his first campaign, we discussed my leaving Boston to head Operation Push in Chicago as he considered his second run. For sundry reasons, I did not make the move. But from that point forwards, our paths remained intertwined. We collaborated on initiatives over the years, bound by shared purpose and mutual respect.
As I write this, I am in Johannesburg.
I remember Jesse’s first visit to South Africa after the death of Steve Biko and the crowds he drew in Soweto. I remember standing with him again in 1994 when we were part of then-president Bill Clinton’s delegation to monitor South Africa’s historic democratic election.
On February 17, America did not simply lose a civil rights icon. The world lost one of its most formidable champions of human rights.
His bright light has dimmed. So I say it one last time: Run, Jesse, Run.
Take your place among the elders of our tribe. Run to join Martin. Ralph. Joe, Rosa, and Fannie Lou Hamer.
You fought the good fight. You finished the race. You kept the faith. Because you did, Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson Snr, America is better. The world is better.
Jackson will be buried on Saturday.
Charles R Stith is a former US ambassador to Tanzania. He is the non-executive chair of the African Presidential Leadership Centre, a Johannesburg-based NGO focused on leadership development and tracking economic and political trends in Africa.
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