Jackson family holds intimate final farewell at Rainbow PUSH headquarters in Chicago

CHICAGO — The family and closest allies of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. gathered Saturday at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s South Side headquarters for an intimate final memorial, the capstone to a week of public and private services for the civil rights leader. A few hundred attendees — most of them family members, longtime allies and confidants — heard eulogies from Jackson’s children, civil rights leaders and the presidents of two African nations who traveled to Chicago to pay their respects.

Speakers throughout the service called on mourners to continue Jackson’s advocacy for economic justice and universal human rights, directing that message explicitly at the next generation of American political leaders and pledging to deepen the civil rights organization’s work as federal immigration enforcement expands.

“It is appropriate that we respect this season of grief,” said Yusef Jackson, one of Jackson’s sons and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “However, it is also appropriate to honor him by stepping up, to step out, and continue his work by answering his call to serve.”

A global farewell

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi were among the dignitaries who spoke Saturday, reflecting the reach of Jackson’s decades of activism beyond U.S. borders.

Ramaphosa, who was a key negotiator in the end of South Africa’s apartheid system, said Jackson had been a close friend of Nelson Mandela and had helped bind the American civil rights movement to the anti-apartheid struggle.

“He told the world that the struggle for dignity in the United States was inseparable from the fight against apartheid and injustice in South Africa,” Ramaphosa said, adding that his nation claimed Jackson as one of their own.

Tshisekedi described what Jackson’s death meant beyond his family.

“Your mourning is also ours. You have lost a father, a husband, a brother. The world has lost a pastor, a champion, a mender of bridges. Africa has lost a faithful, loving son,” Tshisekedi said.

A message to 2028 candidates

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, directed part of his remarks toward the next generation of American political leaders, invoking Jackson’s two presidential campaigns as a model.

“Let the word go out that anyone who would like to be president of the United States in 2028, you’d better study this concept of the rainbow coalition,” Morial said.

U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, an Illinois Democrat and one of the late reverend’s sons, said his father “taught me that any society that will not support the many who are poor will never be able to save the few who are rich,” and described his father’s activism as rooted in a Christian call to service.

Ashley Jackson, the late reverend’s youngest daughter, described her father’s ministry as global in reach but focused on people who never gained public attention.

“Dad’s theology was rooted in the belief that every human being carries inherent worth,” she said. “He fought for that truth in places that most people never saw, people whose names never made the news across decades and continents and causes.”

Jesse Jackson Jr., the late reverend’s eldest son and a former congressman, said his father’s political relationships were driven by a moral rather than a partisan vision.

“He maintained an intense relationship with the political order, not because presidents were white or Black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking to the least of these, those who were disinherited, the dispossessed, the disrespected, demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice,” he said.

Music, comedy and open doors

The service included musical performances by Stevie Wonder, Opal Staples, Terisa Griffin and Kim Burrell. Comedian Chris Tucker performed a stand-up comedy set.

In keeping with Jackson’s philosophy, some members of the public who had gathered outside the PUSH headquarters were allowed to enter the otherwise private service.

Yusef Jackson noted that the Rainbow PUSH Coalition had recently deepened partnerships with activists in Minnesota following what he described as a large Homeland Security operation in that state.

Looking ahead to Selma

Members of the Jackson family and many of Jackson’s mentees are expected to travel to Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to participate in annual commemorations of “Bloody Sunday” — the 1965 march in which civil rights activists were beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Jackson himself attended the march regularly in his lifetime.

The Saturday gathering was the final service in a week of commemorations that included a larger, president-attended public celebration the day before, a memorial for several hundred members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. — of which Jackson was a member — and a Rainbow PUSH alumni reunion.

Earlier in the week, services planned for Washington, D.C., were postponed after House Republican leadership denied a request for Jackson to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol, citing the precedent that only former presidents and senior generals regularly receive the privilege.