Kira Davis, writer and podcaster, said Jesse Jackson’s legacy is defined by his public support for abortion, which she holds responsible for the deaths of many Black babies, and she does not consider him a good man or someone to be celebrated.
Davis made the remarks following the death of a civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and two-time Democratic presidential candidate. Jackson passed away on Feb. 17 at age 84 at his home in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. No cause of death was immediately given. Jackson had been living with progressive supranuclear palsy and disclosed in 2017 that he was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, according to NBC News.
“I think it’s time that we start saying the true things,” said Davis in a Facebook post. “We have to say them, even if they’re uncomfortable. And no, I don’t really feel like celebrating Jesse Jackson’s life today. And certainly a black American like me is grateful for the things that men like him did.”
Davis said she believes Jackson’s stance on abortion overshadowed other aspects of his career.
“But what I will remember Jesse Jackson for is for delivering tens of thousands of black women and millions of black babies to their deathbeds by being an advocate for abortion,” she said. “When Jesse Jackson started out, he was like the rest of us. He was like most black people in America, pro-life.”
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson moved to Chicago in 1964 to attend seminary. He became a close ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and was active in major civil rights campaigns, including Operation Breadbasket. He later founded Operation PUSH, which grew into the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, a national organization focused on social and economic reform.
Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, winning multiple primaries and caucuses and establishing himself as a significant national political figure. He also served one term as a nonvoting shadow senator for Washington, D.C., representing the district before Congress.
Media coverage following his death highlighted various aspects of his life and work. The Chicago Sun-Times underscored his advocacy for social justice and his progression from King’s protégé to leader of Operation Breadbasket, founder of Rainbow/PUSH, and presidential candidate. The Chicago Tribune highlighted tributes from his children, portraying him as a devoted father and enduring advocate for justice.
Some critics contended that Jackson sometimes overstated claims of systemic racism and misrepresented the economic and social challenges in Black communities, suggesting that his political ambitions occasionally diverged from grassroots civil rights efforts.
Hosea Williams, a longtime aide to King, disputed Jackson’s claim that he held King when he was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968, asserting that Jackson never approached him and alleging that Jackson appeared at a Chicago press conference the next day wearing a blood-stained shirt in what Williams described as a staged display.
“I realized the only way Jesse could have gotten that blood was to stoop down on that floor of the Lorraine Motel and rake that blood off that floor and put that blood on him, and I went crazy, I really tried to kill Jesse,” Williams said in an interview.Â
Pastor, author, and commentator Jesse Lee Peterson described Jackson’s legacy as divisive, linking his activism to later debates over affirmative action, reparations, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and asserting that his work expanded from civil rights advocacy into broader political movements with lasting effects on race relations.
“It went from this idea that racism exists, and somehow or another, we need equal rights,” Peterson told Chicago City Wire. “Then it went from that to affirmative action. Then it went to reparations. And then they called it DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). It just never ends.”
Davis said the shift in Jackson’s position was influenced by external political forces following King’s death.
“But later on, after King’s death, when there was a power vacuum and guys like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson moved in to fill it, they took on the ideologies of the people who were funding them,” Davis said. “The Marxists. The atheist, the LGBTQ lobby. So Jesse Jackson, simply by switching his position on abortion publicly, whether or not he believed it personally, he’s responsible for the deaths of many, many black babies.”
Kenneth R. Timmerman, author of Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, claimed that Jackson leveraged political influence and accusations of racism to secure corporate donations for Rainbow/PUSH, sometimes up to $1 million, calling the practice corporate “shakedowns” that influenced later diversity policies.Â
“There are two basic approaches towards the issue of race, especially at that time and going forward,” Timmerman said. “Martin Luther King said you should judge a person on the basis of their character. Jesse Jackson said you should judge them on the basis of the color of their skin and quotas. I think that was a very destructive view.”
Timmerman contended that Jackson lent credibility to controversial international figures, including Liberian President Charles Taylor and Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, and that Jackson’s involvement in the 1999 Lomé peace agreement gave Sankoh control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines, fueling the so-called “blood diamond” trade.
Davis said he views Jackson’s legacy as deeply harmful to the Black community.
“I don’t think he was a good man,” Davis said. “And I don’t think he died a good man. I think he’ll have to answer for that. He left the black community broken and in a deficit and without political capital in this world, because our leaders keep telling us. That killing our babies is the fastest way to equality. And that’s Jesse Jackson’s legacy in my mind.”
Memorial events in Chicago are scheduled to honor Jackson’s life, including public viewings at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters on Feb. 25–26, a “People’s Celebration” at the House of Hope on Feb. 27, and a Homegoing Service at Rainbow/PUSH on Feb. 28.
Davis is a freelance opinion journalist and host of the Just Listen to Yourself podcast, affiliated with SiriusXM’s The Patriot. Based in Orange County, California, she writes on politics and a range of topics, and has authored the book Drawing Lines and produced the film Minty.
