One of the most significant figures in the civil rights movement south of the border has died.
His family announced this morning that the Reverend Jesse Jackson has passed away at the age of 84.
Jackson was a larger-than-life figure.
The well-spoken Baptist minister’s faith was forged in the fires of segregation in the southern states, leading him to rise to a leading role in the equal-rights movement marching alongside Martin Luther King Junior himself in the 1960’s.
He was there on that fateful day that King was assassinated and faced threats many times himself but never let it stand in the way of his faith, or his desire to make the world a better place, which led to him running twice for the Democratic presidential nomination.
My words describing him pale before his own, as his legendary speeches (both on and off the public record) are so eloquent at times that that they should be required reading – always passionate, disarmingly personal, shockingly direct, and tinged at key moments with both hope and desperation.
He advocated for the poor on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and health care, and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition extended that reach to executives and organizations.
His family said it best when they called him “a tireless agent of change who elevated the voices of the voiceless”.
Some people “talk the talk” and others “walk the walk”. Jackson did both while the world was watching and the future itself was at stake.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking beyond the Headlines.
