The Rev. Jesse Jackson: Field general, friend and fan

On Feb. 17, 2026, the Rev. Jesse Jackson died at the age of 84. The longtime activist was a lifetime sportsman: from his playing days to his friendships with prominent athletes, his highly public fandom, and fatherhood of athletic sons.

Anyone who met or was in Jackson’s presence immediately noticed how imposing he was physically. This characteristic even comes across in photos where he’s pictured alongside football legend Jim Brown and boxing champion Muhammad Ali — and with good reason.

Raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson, a high school pitcher, was offered a minor league contract by the Chicago White Sox, thus initiating a relationship with a city he would become associated with for six decades.

Rather than pursue a career in the White Sox minor-league system, Jackson accepted a football scholarship to the University of Illinois in 1959. Standing 6-foot-3, the strapping quarterback was enrolled for two semesters. But upon learning signal-calling duties were reserved for white prospects, he transferred to historically Black North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, home to the first highly publicized sit-ins at Woolworth’s lunch counter in February 1960.

Jackson made his presence on campus known immediately. He was not only a quarterback, but he also rose to student body president. Ever the vocal type, the first time he spotted coed Jacqueline Brown on campus, he shouted to everyone within earshot that he would marry her. That audible eventually rang true. Leadership fit Jackson like his baseball glove. He was a Grand Basileus in Omega Psi Phi in his early 20s.

On April 4, 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prepared to deliver his first public dissent against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War — the historic “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in New York City. As Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young sat with King in his hotel room, Ali and Brown entered. The men discussed the issue at hand for hours. A year later to the day, King was killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

Jackson’s human rights and activism career is well-archived elsewhere. He never strayed from his athletic roots.

When the nation sought the language to process the deaths of sports legends, Jackson often provided it.

At baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s 1972 funeral, he eulogized: “The mercy of God intercepted this process Tuesday and permitted him to steal away home. Where referees are out of place, and only the supreme judge of the universe speaks.”

At Las Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace, he said of boxing great Joe Louis, “He is in the center of the ring taking on all challengers and has no peers. … He was our Sampson, he was our David. Joe Louis was our messenger of hope.”

Jackson’s children absorbed his athletic lessons. Jesse Jr., a standout running back at Washington D.C.’s St. Albans School, followed in his father’s footsteps to play at North Carolina A&T. A few years later, son Yusuf Jackson went from St. Albans to playing linebacker at the University of Virginia in the late 1980s.

At the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns welterweight title fight in Las Vegas on Sept. 16, 1981, Jackson sat between comedian Bill Cosby and singer Cher. As a fan, Jackson was unmistakable in the crowd at Mike Tyson’s fights and Michael Jordan’s basketball games. He not only knew them, he never looked out of place with them. In 1988, Jackson baptized Tyson.

When Jackson died, a photo surfaced on social media in which Jordan appears to be asking the activist for an autograph. Both times Jackson ran for president, his campaign manager was Michigan State alum Joel Ferguson, a longtime mentor to legendary NBA star Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Jackson didn’t romanticize athletes. He recognized their power and their vulnerability. That’s why he advocated for them when corporations exploited their images without reinvesting in the communities that produced them. It’s why he boycotted companies he felt failed to meet that responsibility. He understood that athletes were often asked to be symbols without being citizens.

When University of Maryland basketball star and Boston Celtic lottery pick Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose in June 1986, Jackson and Harlem congressman Charles Rangel encouraged President Ronald Reagan to declare a war on drugs.

In November 1999, seven Decatur, Illinois, high school students were suspended two years for their involvement in a brawl at a high school football game. Jackson lobbied the local school board to reverse its decision.

Jesse Jackson balanced his seriousness with a distinct A&T Aggie sense of humor and athletic swagger. In the early 2000s at a political rally in Wilmington, Delaware, he spotted local city council president Ted Blunt and shouted: “‘Ready’ Teddy Blunt!” — a nod to Blunt’s time as a CIAA basketball star at Winston-Salem State (which overlapped Jackson’s A&T football career).

When his friend Ali died in June 2016, Jackson wrote for CNN.com: “We ride on Muhammad Ali’s shoulders.” Now, 10 years later, another broad-shouldered leader rests eternally.

This time, however, a nation will have to find the right words.

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