Jesse Jackson: Rest in Power, Rest in Peace.
Today we mourn the loss of Rev. Jesse Jackson, an American civil rights activist, politician, and ordained Baptist minister. He was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and was a follower of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Jackson was at the hotel in Memphis, Tennessee when King was assassinated in 1968.
Jean Seberg and her mother Dorothy at Riverside Cemetery September 8, 1970 for Nina Hart Gary's burial. Courtesy Marshalltown Times-Republican.
International film star
and civil rights advocate Jean Seberg crossed paths with 29-year-old Jesse
Jackson in the fall of 1970. After the death and burial of her baby daughter Nina
Hart Gary in Riverside Cemetery in her hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa, Jean spent time with her
parents grieving and looking for ways to pour her sorrow into something
positive. She arranged to fly to Chicago with several Marshalltown community
members and high school students to attend Jesse Jackson’s Operation
Breadbasket service. Among them was her young friend Mark Adams, a gifted
singer and songwriter whom Jean asked to perform at Nina’s funeral.
The group flew from the small Marshalltown Airport to Chicago’s Midway Airport. Operation Breadbasket was an organization dedicated to improving the economic conditions of black communities across the United States. Jean sat on the stage to one side of the pulpit at which Jackson delivered his empowering speech.
Mark Adams-Westin (Amy & Adams) did an
on-camera interview for the Emmy award-winning documentary Jean Seberg: Actress Activist Icon (produced by Garry McGee and Kelly & Tammy Rundle) and shared his memories of that
transformative experience that took place on October 24th, 1970.
MARK ADAMS-WESTIN: We flew in two small airplanes out of
Marshalltown Airport and it was pre-dawn so it was dark. My dad drove me out
there, and Jean’s father Ed Seberg was out there, and Mr. Roger Maxwell and his
wife. I think there were probably ten of us that all went together. Jean handed
me this envelope. She said this is a copy of what I have. You ride in the other
plane because if something happens to either one of us at least one of these
copies will get there to Jesse Jackson.
We got to Chicago and we were met at Midway
Airport and several huge limousines stopped and picked us up.
There was a row of us in the church of several
hundred people in this big theatre singing, and people with tambourines, and
everybody was moving, and the music was just absolutely stunningly glorious.
Jesse Jackson walked in, and of course
everyone erupts and he gives this two hour message. And it’s like I never heard
a sermon like that with this energy and everybody going “Yes sir,” “Tell us about
it, Jesse,” “That’s right on,” “Amen!” you know?
Everything he said… it was like the freedom
and the emotion and the genuine bearing of it, and he shouted I AM SOMEBODY! To
sit there with him yelling that out to hundreds of black people, I AM! And
they’d shout back “I am!” SOMEBODY! “Somebody!”
I MAY BE POOR! “I may be poor!” I MAY BE UNEDUCATED! “I may be uneducated”
they called back. BUT I AM SOMEBODY. “I
am somebody!” And you’d hear this and… I
mean right now I’ve got goose bumps--because it was just absolutely stunning.
And, I thought, these are [supposed to be] the bad people? Give me a break!
I feel fortunate to have grown up in that era, to have grown up with that intensity, to have grown up with this whole thing that it wasn’t about making money, it wasn’t about being secure for the rest of your life, and making sure you have a great car. It was about being human and humane.
Rev. Jesse Jackson died aged 84 on Tuesday morning, February 17,
2026 surrounded by loved ones. His wife Jacqueline Brown and their five
children survive him.
“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 in a statement.
Rev. Al Sharpton said, "Our nation
lost one of its greatest moral voices who carried history in his footsteps and
hope in his voice. Reverend Jackson stood wherever dignity was under attack,
from apartheid abroad to injustice at home. His voice echoed in boardrooms and
in jail cells."
Public observances will be held in
Chicago and future plans for celebration of life events will be announced by
the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
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Order the award-winning documentary Jean Seberg: Actress Activist Icon LINK
