The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., the civil rights leader and founder of the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, has been hospitalized.
The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in a statement said that Jackson had been admitted to the hospital Wednesday and was under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
“The family appreciates all prayers at this time,” the organization stated.
Jackson’s son, Jesse Jackson Jr., confirmed his father had been hospitalized in an email to the Tribune Wednesday night but provided no further comment.
PSP is a rare neurological disorder caused by damage to nerve cells in the brain that affects body movements, walking and balance and eye movements, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Jackson’s PSP condition was confirmed last April, according to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
This is the latest in a series of health setbacks in recent years. Jackson announced in 2017 that he had begun outpatient care for Parkinson’s disease two years earlier. In early 2021, he had gallbladder surgery and later that year was treated for COVID-19, including a stint at a physical therapy-focused facility. He was hospitalized again in November 2021 for a fall that caused a head injury.
For over half a century, Jackson has been one of the nation’s foremost civil rights leaders and a central figure in national politics, twice running for president. Raised in South Carolina under Jim Crow segregation laws, Jackson was a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. until the Black leader’s 1968 assassination.
In 1971, Jackson broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to form Operation PUSH — originally named People United to Save Humanity — a sweeping civil rights organization based on Chicago’s South Side. Thirteen years later, Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition. By 1996, the two had merged to become the joint Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Jackson stepped down from heading the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in 2023.
Through his tenure as an activist, Jackson has been a champion for the economically and politically downtrodden, and has been an expert power player who organized boycotts against major companies he felt weren’t hiring and investing in minorities.
Known for his rhetorical flourishes and his short, catchy and sometimes-rhythmic and rhyming phrases — ideal as sound bites — Jackson sought to instill self-confidence in the Black community with his trademark call-and-response celebration of the self that started with “I am somebody.” Another signature line was his anti-drug refrain, “Down with dope, up with hope.”
Two of Jackson’s children became congressmen. His son Jonathan Jackson won the election to Illinois’ 1st congressional district in 2022, while Jesse Jackson Jr. represented Illinois’ 2nd district for 17 years until resigning during a federal investigation involving misuse of campaign funds. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife pleaded guilty to using about $750,000 in campaign cash to support a lavish lifestyle and served prison terms. In recent weeks, Jesse Jackson Jr. has announced he’s running again for Congress.
The Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner and the Associated Press contributed.
