Obama credits Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns for paving the way for him

CHICAGO — Former President Barack Obama honored civil rights leader Jesse Jackson during a Celebration of Life service Friday in Chicago, crediting Jackson’s historic presidential campaigns with opening the door for a new generation of Black political leadership.

Speaking before a crowd that included national political leaders and civil rights figures, Obama reflected on the profound influence Jackson had on American politics and on his own journey into public life.

“He paved the road for so many others to follow,” Obama said. “And it was because of that path that he had laid, because of his courage, his audacity, that two decades later, a young Black senator from Chicago’s South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination.”

Jackson, a towering figure in the modern civil rights movement, spent decades organizing around voting rights, economic justice and international human rights.

Refusing the limits of segregation

Obama began by recalling Jackson’s upbringing during segregation and the circumstances that shaped his early activism.

“Reverend Jackson’s immense gifts were apparent at an early age, even if his circumstances conspired to try to hold him back,” Obama said. “Born out of wedlock to a teenage mom, growing up under the oppressive cloud of segregation confined to schools, sports facilities, movie theaters that were separate and unequal.”

He described a society designed to restrict the possibilities of Black children.

“It was a world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far, that to think otherwise would be foolish or dangerous,” Obama said.

Jackson rejected that message early in life. As a college student, he helped lead a group of Black students into a whites-only library and was arrested during the protest.

“The library closed, but then it reopened, and when it did, it was open to everyone,” Obama said.

Keeping the movement alive

After joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jackson helped lead Operation Breadbasket and later founded Operation PUSH, organizing economic boycotts and pushing corporations to hire more Black workers.

Obama said Jackson’s leadership became especially important after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., when the optimism of the early civil rights movement began to fade.

“It was during this period, and especially after Dr. King’s death, when the optimism of the early movement had begun to fade and leadership had begun to fracture… that Reverend Jackson rose above despair and kept that righteous flame alive,” Obama said.

Through voter registration drives and activism around criminal justice and labor rights, Jackson continued to expand the reach of the movement.

A campaign that changed what was possible

Obama spent much of his remarks reflecting on Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988, which challenged long-standing assumptions about who could compete for the nation’s highest office.

At the time, Obama was a recent college graduate and community organizer working on the South Side of Chicago — searching for a way to contribute to social change.

“I remember how at the time, plenty of people, including plenty of Black folks, were dismissing Jesse’s chances,” Obama said.

But watching Jackson debate established candidates changed his perspective.

“I remember how when that debate was over, I turned off that TV, and I thought the same thing that I know a lot of people thought that night… that in his ideas, in his platform, in his analysis, in his intelligence, in his insight, Jesse hadn’t just held his own. He had owned that stage.”

Jackson’s candidacy also helped inspire Obama personally.

“He wasn’t an intruder. He wasn’t a pretender. He belonged on that stage,” Obama said.

“The message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that maybe there wasn’t any place, any room, where we didn’t belong.”

Obama: "We are living in a time where it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions. Another setback to the idea of the rule of law … but this man — Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson — inspires us to take a harder path. His voice calls… pic.twitter.com/o23bpUDp8a

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2026

A coalition for the overlooked

Jackson’s presidential campaigns were built around what became known as the Rainbow Coalition, which brought together a wide range of communities that often felt excluded from national politics.

“Jesse didn’t just speak to Black folks,” Obama said. “He spoke to white folks and Latinos and Asian Americans and the First Americans… and blue-collar workers.”

“He gave them the same message: that they mattered, that their voices and their votes counted.”

A legacy that reshaped American politics

Although Jackson never secured the Democratic nomination, Obama said his campaigns transformed American politics and expanded the possibilities for future leaders.

“By the delegate count, Jesse’s two candidacies ultimately came up short,” Obama said. “But he paved the road for so many others to follow.”

Obama said Jackson’s campaigns helped inspire political breakthroughs across the country and influenced the evolution of the Democratic Party.

“It was because of that path that he had laid… that two decades later, a young Black senator from Chicago’s South Side would even be taken seriously,” Obama said.

A message for the present moment

Obama concluded by connecting Jackson’s legacy to the current political climate, warning that many Americans feel discouraged by the state of national politics.

“We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope,” Obama said.

“Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law.”

But Jackson’s life, he said, offers a different example.

“His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, ‘Send me,’ wherever we have a chance to make an impact.”

“How fortunate we were that Jesse Jackson answered that call,” Obama said. “What a great debt we owe to him.”