Deaconess Community,

On February 17, 2026, life slowed as we paused to honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. On that day, Rev. Jackson joined the lineage of ancestors who shaped the moral architecture of the late-20th-century Civil Rights movement. A pioneering force in multiracial democratic politics, Rev. Jackson was a builder of coalitions, a translator of moral imperative into electoral force, and a strategist who understood the utility of organized power.

To understand Rev. Jackson’s significance in our own lives and as a moral force in American democracy, we must situate him within movement history and pass this understanding on to the young people in our lives.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1941, Rev. Jackson rose to national prominence as a young minister and organizer working alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He served in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and was in Memphis in April 1968 at the Lorraine Motel when Dr. King was assassinated. That moment, on the balcony in the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination, symbolized a generational transfer of moral urgency. Rev. Jackson would spend the next five decades translating that urgency into political action.

In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and later the Rainbow Coalition as organizing frameworks rooted in economic justice, political participation, and global human rights. PUSH was designed to advance economic empowerment, corporate accountability, and educational access for Black Americans. Long before there were online accountability campaigns targeting corporations, Rev. Jackson pressed major companies to diversify executive leadership and invest in Black communities. He challenged companies whose profits depended on Black consumers but whose leadership, policies and practices, excluded them. He understood what too many still resist: civil rights without economic leverage leave structural inequities intact.

In 1984, Rev. Jackson adapted and nationalized the “Rainbow Coalition,” a multiracial organizing framework which originated in Chicago in the 1960s under Fred Hampton. With the National Rainbow Coalition, Rev. Jackson proposed a durable political alignment of Black voters, Latino communities, labor unions, poor white people, LGBTQ people, and farmers resulting in a coalition grounded not in identity alone, but in shared material interests.

Then he tested it. He understood that movements must mature into governing capacity.

His vision and strategic approach to organizing could be characterized as audacious. Rev. Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and again in 1988. His 1984 campaign was historic; his 1988 campaign was transformative. He won 11 primaries and caucuses, secured more than 7 million votes, and finished second in the Democratic delegate count. He registered millions of new voters and reshaped the party platform toward more progressive positions on healthcare access, voting rights enforcement, education, and apartheid in South Africa.

The American electorate we talk about today, one that is diverse, multiracial, and coalition-based, did not materialize spontaneously. Rev. Jackson helped fuel it, and before him, Shirley Chisholm.

Rev. Jackson’s influence extended beyond domestic politics. In 1984, he negotiated the release of U.S. navy pilot Lt. Robert Goodman from Syria. He engaged leaders in Cuba. He advocated against apartheid and brought international visibility to human rights struggles when formal diplomatic channels stalled.

But beyond strategy, Rev. Jackson was a preacher of possibility. He understood that policy shapes material conditions, but narrative shapes imagination. And imagination shapes what people believe is possible.

He would proclaim, “I am somebody,” in call-and-response with children across the country. That affirmation was not performance; it was psychological liberation. In an era when Black children were routinely marginalized by public systems, Rev. Jackson insisted on pride as a political act.

Long before “narrative strategy” became common language in philanthropic and organizing spaces, he understood that identity formation and public imagination, in themselves, form the infrastructure that enables others to become full participants in democracy. If ordinary people cannot imagine themselves as full participants in democracy, they will never claim its protections.

In this moment, voting rights are being gutted state-by-state and economic inequality has reached historic heights. Democratic norms and standard constitutional practices are being upended. The question Rev. Jackson’s life leaves us is not simply how we will remember him or honor his legacy, but how we will bend history for generations to come.

Even still, the deeper measure of our learning the lessons his life offers, is whether we will build coalitions wide enough, courageous enough, and disciplined enough to build a new democracy.

Our history, our future.

In service to the future our ancestors imagined,

Constance Harper
Vice President, Strategic Impact & Innovation

Read the full February 2026 newsletter here.