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When Barack Obama won the presidential election in
2008, becoming the United States' first black president

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it was enough to bring Jesse Jackson to tears. It
was a moment Jackson himself had paved the way for

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He ran for president twice in the 1980s and was the first
African American to have significant success at the ballot box

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In a statement, Obama wrote, Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear
about the passing of a true giant, adding, we stood on his shoulders

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Jesse Jackson changed American politics. He
was a consequential and transformative figure

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Kamala Harris, the first black woman to
become vice president, said in a statement

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Reverend Jesse Jackson was one of America's
great patriots. He spent his life summoning

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all of us to fulfill the promise of America and
building the coalitions to make the promise real

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Friends and supporters also paid tribute outside the
headquarters of Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition in Chicago

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I felt like he was like family. I mean, he did
a lot of things for me and the community as well

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What I am somebody means is that all
you have to do is just keep pushing

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pushing, keep pushing. And that's what Jesse taught us. In a statement, former
President Bill Clinton said that Jesse Jackson championed human dignity

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And former President Joe Biden described
Jackson as a man of God and of the people

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For his part, President Trump wrote of Jackson, he was a
good man with lots of personality, grit, and street smarts

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Jackson was a protege of the civil
rights icon Martin Luther King Jr

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and was at his side when King was assassinated in 1968. King's
daughter, Bernice, called Jackson a courageous bridge builder

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posting a photo of her father and Jackson
with the caption, both now ancestors