President Bola Tinubu has mourned the passing of America’s iconic Civil Rights and Baptist Preacher, Rev’d Jesse Jackson who died of Parkinson disease on Tuesday, February 17 at the age of 84.
While mourning him, the Nigerian leader disclosed that in the 1970’s when he was a student in Chicago, he witnessed firsthand how Jackson helped to drive the American dream.
He said this in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday in which he described Rev. Jackson as “a servant-leader who captured global imagination as a young activist alongside civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.”
Jackson, Tinubu said, “fought for the dignity of black people, the oppressed and the voiceless in the United States and across the world.”
The president, also noted that Jackson became a national and global icon who demanded improved social and economic conditions for African-Americans. He emphasized that Jackson carried on the unfinished work of Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle for racial justice.
According to him, “As a student in the United States in the 1970s, I lived in Chicago, the same city where Reverend Jackson fought the most important battles against injustice.
“I witnessed firsthand how, as a faithful servant of God and humanity, he pointed the arc of American society to the great promise of the American dream.”
Tinubu pointed out that Jackson was influential in American politics and global affairs, and paved the way for Barack Obama as the first Black American President.
“When Barack Obama broke the glass ceiling as the first Black President in America, it was Rev. Jackson who first inflicted the cracks on the ceiling in 1984 and again in 1988,” he added.
Jackson, he said, was a great friend of Nigeria and Africa and a formidable voice against apartheid in South Africa, during which time the iconic Jackson played a front-row role in campaigns for the release of Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress leaders.
Tinubu recalled, also, that Jackson defended human rights and democratic rule during Nigeria’s era of military dictatorship and was appointed Special Envoy by President Bill Clinton to Nigeria and Africa in 1997 and 1999.
Jackson promoted civil liberties and helped link African leaders with the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus to advance Africa’s interests, and remained a strong voice for justice and human progress, inspiring people to “keep hope alive”.
