American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of the United States' most influential Black voices, died peacefully on Tuesday morning, his family said in a statement. He was 84.

Jackson, a Baptist minister, had been a civil rights leader since the 1960s, when he marched with Martin Luther King Jr and helped fundraise for the cause.

"Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world," Jackson's family said.

"His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honour his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by."

The family did not release a cause of death, but Jackson revealed in 2017 that he had the degenerative neurological disease Parkinson's.

He was hospitalised for observation in November in connection to another neurodegenerative condition, according to media reports.

A dynamic orator and a successful mediator in international disputes, the long-time Baptist minister expanded the space for African Americans on the national stage for more than six decades.

He was the most prominent Black person to run for the US presidency – with two unsuccessful attempts to capture the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980s – until Barack Obama took the office in 2009.

Jackson was present for many consequential moments in the long battle for racial justice in the US, including with King in Memphis in 1968 when the civil rights leader was slain.

He openly wept in the crowd as Obama celebrated his 2008 presidential election, and he stood with George Floyd's family in 2021 after a court convicted an ex-police officer of the unarmed Black man's murder. (AFP)



Edited by Aaron Tam