Share and Follow
CHICAGO (AP) — Following a lively, nationally broadcast tribute attended by former presidents, current governors, and local Chicagoans, the close-knit circle of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. will gather privately to mourn at the headquarters of his organization.
The intimate memorial at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s South Side Chicago headquarters will host a select group, primarily consisting of family, friends, and longtime allies. This service marks the culmination of a series of memorial events held nationwide over the past week.
“I anticipate that tomorrow will embody everything Rev. Jackson stood for,” remarked Rev. Chauncey D. Brown, a pastor from the Chicago area and one of Jackson’s proteges. “The gathering will feature not only dignitaries and iconic figures but also many individuals who represent the true grassroots power.”
Seating for the morning service will be on a first-come, first-served basis, according to event organizers.
Since Jackson’s passing last month, his family and supporters have paid tribute to him through commemorations, acts of community service, and demonstrations aimed at continuing his legacy.
Mourners were first allowed public visitations at the Rainbow PUSH headquarters in February, giving Jackson’s longtime neighbors a chance to say goodbye to the civil rights leader.
The late reverend then lay in state at the South Carolina Capitol. Jackson grew up in segregated Greenville, South Carolina. As a high schooler, he led fellow students into a protest that desegregated a local library, starting a lifetime of civil rights activism.
Services honoring Jackson in Washington, D.C., were postponed after a request for him to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol was denied. House Republican leadership cited the precedent that only former presidents and senior generals regularly receive the privilege.
Jackson’s mentees also honored his legacy by organizing on issues such as voting rights, economic inequality and political organizing in the weeks after his passing. Rainbow PUSH hosted a forum for community organizers and clergy whom Jackson mentored to discuss his impact on their careers.
On Thursday, the headquarters also hosted a series of events that celebrated Jackson’s life ahead of the public celebration. Hundreds of members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity gathered at the headquarters to honor Jackson.
Jackson’s life “is a dream fulfilled,” said Michael Barksdale Jr., one of the fraternity brothers who honored Jackson. A Chicago public school counselor who first met Jackson as a high school freshman, Barksdale said the PUSH Coalition awarded him a college scholarship after he worked as one of the group’s local youth organizers.
“It is up to my generation now to continue that legacy of Jackson and all the civil rights dignitaries who came before,” said Barksdale, 37. “They did all of the heavy lifting, and we are going to continue to build.”
That same night, the chamber hosted a reunion for Rainbow PUSH alumni to commemorate the late reverend and his years of activism. The group included state and local lawmakers, academics, longtime organizers and former diplomats.
Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, paid her respects alongside longtime veterans of the organization who supported Jackson throughout his life. Braun, who served as a volunteer on Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, was supported by Jackson in her successful 1992 election.
They celebrated Jackson’s life and reminisced about his dual presidential bids; his globe-trotting activism as an anti-apartheid activist and hostage negotiator; and his evangelism for a Christianity that emphasized justice for all and support for the downtrodden.
The headquarters also greeted nearly 100 progressive activists from Minnesota. The assembled groups represented civil, labor and immigrants’ rights groups who were recently thrust into the national spotlight after President Donald Trump’s administration’s enhanced immigration enforcement operation in the state sparked protests.
“It’s really empowering, at least for me, to see the coalition coming together and to understand the history of civil rights and human rights and immigrants’ rights,” said Yeng Her, the organizing director at the Immigrant Defense Network, one of the organizations that has protested the Trump administration in Minnesota.
The Jackson family invited the activists to Chicago to learn more about Jackson’s strategies and find resources for their own organizations. Organizers met Rainbow PUSH alumni and some of Jackson’s children.
The gathering was a prelude to both the private service for Jackson’s family and another commemoration.
On Sunday, members of the Jackson family and many of Jackson’s mentees will travel to Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the “Bloody Sunday” protest marches when civil rights activists were beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.
Jackson himself often attended the same anniversary march.