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For over six decades, Jesse Jackson was
an architect, really, of American history

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the nation's most influential black figure
in the years between the civil rights era

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of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
and the election of Barack Obama

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Well, on Tuesday morning, he died peacefully,
surrounded by his family at the age of 84

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A cause of death wasn't given, but
he had been hospitalized in November

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for the treatment of a rare, particularly severe
neurodegenerative condition called progressive supranuclear palsy

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which can often be mistaken for Parkinson's disease,
which he announced he had been diagnosed with in 2017

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But he leaves behind an indelible mark
on the country's civil rights movement

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from the front lines of the Jim Crow era
South to the halls of international diplomacy

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His life really was a marathon of advocacy
that redefines the black American experience

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He was born in South Carolina in
1941 to an unwed teenage mother

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before rising to become a civil rights icon as a youth protege of Dr Martin Luther King Jr And when Dr King was assassinated
in 1968 Jackson became a standard bearer for the next generation when he founded PUSH that the People United to Save Humanity

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He did that to empower what he called the
voiceless and the vulnerable. Well, in the 80s

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he mounted two compelling runs to be the Democratic
presidential candidates, building what he called

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a rainbow coalition, which inspired an alliance
of black, white, Latino, Asian, native and queer

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people. And though he didn't win the nomination,
he did something arguably more significant

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registering millions of new voters and proving
that a black man could be a serious contender

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for the White House. Despite his influence,
however, he never really achieved the commanding

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moral stature of Dr. King or the ultimate
political triumph that was attained by Barack

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Obama when he won the presidency. But his mantra
to keep hope alive resounded with many, despite

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some personal failings giving his critics a source of ammunition against him and also being a source of annoyance for his admirers But his visions for the country
laid the groundwork for decades of democratic leaders that followed in his path His family on Tuesday is saying our father was a servant leader not only to our family

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but to the oppressed, the voiceless
and the overlooked around the world

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What sort of relationship, if any, did Jesse Jackson
have with the current president, Donald Trump

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Well, Reverend Jesse Jackson and current President
Donald Trump shared a long, if unusual, public history

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I say former because they were quite
in touch with each other at one point

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Jackson praised Trump in the 90s for supporting minority
entrepreneurs but became a sharp critic during Trump's political rise

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especially during his first term in office, warning that his rhetoric
seeded the clouds of division and fear. Trump has, though, rarely

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been critical of Jackson, but has praised, raised
past interactions between the two of them to dispel

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accusations of racism In some ways their relationship is almost kind of emblematic of Donald Trump political life before he decided to run for
the presidency and shifted his viewpoint somewhat During the late 90s like I said Trump was a vocal supporter of Jackson Rainbow Push Coalition

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He also backed his Wall Street project, which
aimed to increase minority representation in

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the financial sector. Trump even donated office
space at 40 Wall Street to the project and

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provided financial backing for some of Jackson's
initiatives as well. In 98 and 99, Jackson publicly

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praised Trump for his commitment to diversity,
calling him a friend and noting that he seized

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the need for inclusion. Of course, that would
change when Trump came into office and dispelled

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all of the diversity, equity and inclusion
initiatives that the government had put in place

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Jackson's viewpoint on Trump, though, started to
change when Trump became a leading voice of the

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Bertha movement, which falsely claims that
Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States

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He'd since distanced himself, calling his
claims unfortunate, and then ultimately became

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harsher in his words, calling him divisive
and saying that he wasn't the presidential

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candidate that he knew in the United States