Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. has been hospitalized with a neurodegenerative condition.
The 84-year-old was admitted to a hospital Wednesday and under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy, a condition that he has been managing for more than a decade, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said in a news release Wednesday night.
“The family appreciates all prayers at this time,” the statement said.
Jackson was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which he announced in 2017, but last April his diagnosis was confirmed to be PSP, according to the statement. He also had previously been put in intensive care in 2021 during a bout of COVID.
PSP affects body movements, walking and balance and eye movements, according to the National Institutes of Health. PSP is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s when symptoms are new.
Jackson is best known for his civil rights advocacy, from denouncing apartheid in South Africa and Palestine to his work more locally with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Hampton.
He was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, eventually becoming an ordained Baptist minister. His public activism began while he was a college freshman at North Carolina A&T as one of the “Greenville Eight,” a group of Black students protesting at the whites-only public library in his hometown.
Jackson later ran unsuccessfully for president twice but successfully negotiated the release of U.S. citizens being held hostage abroad multiple times.
He formed Operation PUSH in 1971 and the Rainbow Coalition 1984 — an extension of his then-presidential campaign — both of which merged in 1996. He stepped down as president in July 2023 due to his health.
Contributing: Lynn Sweet
