US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated South who became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died at age 84, his family said in a statement on Tuesday. “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 said.
BBC adds: Jesse Jackson, a key figure during the US civil rights movement of the 1960s, was known for being the first African-American to make the jump from activism to major-party presidential politics. A protege of Martin Luther King Jr, Jackson built a career around working to politically organise and improve the lives of African-Americans, and became a national force during his two White House campaigns.