Jesse Jackson: Civil rights trailblazer - The Sunday Story
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jesse Jackson, the civil rights firebrand, preacher, and two-time presidential candidate rose from segregated South Carolina to the front lines of America’s fight for justice. Marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson transformed protest into political power, inspiring generations and paved the way to the first black president. We take a look at his influential, and controversial life.
Guest: Anna Temkin, deputy obituary editor, The Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Dave Creasey and Julia Webster.
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Read more: Rev Jesse Jackson obituary: civil rights campaigner
Clips: CBS, NPR, ITV, WCNC, BBC, The Obama White House, ThamesTV.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:07.0 | Jesse Jackson, the charismatic and impassioned civil rights champion in the United States, |
| 0:22.3 | died this week at the age of 84. |
| 0:24.9 | I may be poor than I am somebody. |
| 0:30.7 | I must be respected. |
| 0:33.9 | I must be protected. |
| 0:35.3 | He was a moral and political force in the US for almost seven decades, |
| 0:40.6 | taking over from where his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr. left off |
| 0:44.5 | and with his own shots at the presidency, paving the way for Barack Obama to be elected president in 2008. |
| 0:53.4 | He was an emotional moment, a transformative moment, a redemptive moment. |
| 1:00.7 | I saw a rock standing there with a certain majesty. |
| 1:08.3 | He was a celebrated speaker and campaigner, but he could be blunt and controversial, particularly in some of the company he kept. |
| 1:19.8 | We'll chart his life that took him from a small segregated community in South Carolina to the heights of American political activism. |
| 1:27.7 | The story today, Jesse Jackson, civil rights trailblazer and presidential pioneer. |
| 2:02.9 | Thank you. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation, the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance |
| 2:10.0 | to pursue their full measure of happiness. |
| 2:14.1 | There are images of Jesse Jackson standing in the crowd that night in Green Park in Chicago, |
| 2:20.2 | and his eyes are filled with tears. |
| 2:23.2 | No doubt he must have been thinking about the very long road that it took to get to that moment, |
| 2:29.5 | and it was a road that he himself had walked down along with other key figures in the civil rights movement. |
| 2:35.7 | This is Anna Temkin. She is deputy obituary editor at the times. |
... |
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