VETERAN US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, a protege of Martin Luther King Jnr who was twice a presidential candidate, died today aged 84.

His daughter Santita Jackson confirmed that her father had died at home, surrounded by his family.

Mr Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad, campaigning for the poor and underrepresented on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and healthcare. 

He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders and, through his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he chanelled cries for black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressing executives to increase diversity. 

When he declared: “I am Somebody,” in a poem he often repeated, he sought to reach people of all colours. “I may be poor, but I am Somebody; I may be young; but I am Somebody; I may be on welfare, but I am Somebody.”

Mr Jackson continued protesting against racial injustice into the era of Black Lives Matter even as his health began to fail.

In 2024, he appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and at a city council meeting to show support for a resolution backing a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Fellow civil rights leader Al Sharpton said: “My mentor has passed. He was a consequential and transformative leader who changed this nation and the world. He shaped public policy and changed laws.

“He kept the dream alive and taught young children from broken homes, like me, that we don’t have broken spirits.”

Mr Jackson’s influence was felt internationally.

Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP, said she had first met him in 1987, when she entered Parliament.

“He was very smart, warm and hugely charismatic — a direct connection to the great era of civil rights,” she recalled.

Indian Workers Association (GB) national president Harsev Bains said Mr Jackson’s “legacy, the global civil rights movement for freedom and dignity for all, lives on.”