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The Funeral Of Rev. Jesse Jackson. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 06, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ISIAH THOMAS, HALL OF FAME NBA PLAYER: And he stood there with tears in his eyes. And I know all of you remember this image. And those big, heavy, broad shoulders lifting you up, holding you high, saying, I got you, I got you.

Yes, that's what, that's what Reverend Jesse L. Jackson means to us in Chicago, and our royal family. So we thank you for the courage.

We thank you for the faith. We thank you for believing in us. And all of us who were so devastated from the 60s and the 70s coming out of Jim Crow, trying to make a way out of no way.

When he would improvise in a poem, I am somebody, when he would say, even if I'm on welfare, I'm like, he talking to me. Even if I'm poor, oh, he talking to me. He had a way of connecting personally with us.

So today, when he said, keep hope alive, when there was no hope for us, and all of all of you here from Chicago know, in the 60s, we felt like there was no hope. Hope was lost. Hope was gone.

This man gave us hope, gave us life, gave us energy. And today, I want to thank all of you for showing up. And to the organizers and presenters, I would just like to say to the organizers, when you took on the challenge to bring this man home, you couldn't understand the vastness and the multitudes that he touched.

So there's no way you're going to be on time. It ain't going to happen. And you know why it's not going to happen?

Because all of us here, when you look around, we are from every single walk of life. Rich, poor, strong. He brought it all together. The Rainbow Coalition, thank you, appreciate you. Mama, don't you get up, I'm coming over to tell you I love you.

(APPLAUSE)

THOMAS: The man who got up two hours ago, talking about a 24-second shot clock, just said that he don't honor time. What Jackson family, Jackson family, your heart has to be beating, just beaming to know how much we all love the Reverand. It's got to be.

It's got to be. And I'm with that thing. Y'all will always be our royal family.

Our first family. Because y'all are the Jacksons. Y'all royalty. Well, I get the opportunity to introduce my seatmate from the Senate, who came on to be the 44th president of the United States, Chicago, ladies and gentlemen, President Barack Obama.

(CHEERING)

[14:35:00]

BARACK OBAMA, FORM PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's good to be home.

(CHEERING)

OBAMA: I love you back. The book, the book of Isaiah.

(CHEERING)

OBAMA: Where are you at? No, see, I believe in the constitution. The book of Isaiah.

God is looking for a messenger to guide a hardened and resistant people. The Lord asks, whom shall I send? And who will go with us?

To which Isaiah replies. Here I am, Lord. Send me.

Mother Jackson and the Jackson family. To President and Mrs. Biden, President and Secretary Clinton, Vice President Harris, Pastor Bates, my old friend, though he looking good. Reverend Meeks. The Reverend Jacobs.

It is an honor to join you today to celebrate the Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson. A man who, when the poor and the dispossessed needed a champion, and a country needed healing, stepped forward again, and again, and again, and said, send me. Reverend Jackson's immense gifts were apparent at an early age, even if his circumstances conspired to try to hold him back.

Born out of wedlock to a teenage mom, growing up under the oppressive cloud of segregation. Confined to schools, sports facilities, movie theaters that were separate and unequal. It was a world where on Thanksgiving, he'd have to wait for his mother to come home on the bus, carrying leftovers from the dinner she had to cook for somebody else.

A world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far. That to think otherwise would be foolish or dangerous. And that wisdom required you to accept your lot in life.

And young Jesse refused to accept that verdict. He was a born leader, an athlete, a talker, knew how to talk, star quarterback, student body president. He could have succeeded within the confines that were determined for him and had a successful life.

[14:40:00]

But like so many of his generation, so many extraordinary civil rights leaders in the late 50s and 60s, that Joshua generation, he instinctively understood that individual success meant nothing unless everybody was free. So he became inspired by the bus boycotts in Montgomery.

He led seven black students into the whites only library, sitting down and getting arrested for reading. Think about that. The library closed, but then it reopened. And when it did, it was open to everyone.

Send me, Jesse said. Even as a young man, and the world got a little bit better.

By the time Reverend Jackson graduated from college, he attended Chicago Theological Seminary. He knew the nature of his calling, and he became, as everybody knows, the youngest member of SCLC, assigned to lead Operation Breadbasket here in Chicago. Right around the time that Isaiah Thomas is talking about.

And it was during this period, and especially after Dr. King's death, when the optimism of the early movement had begun to fade, and leadership had begun to fracture, and when the country seemed to have grown bored, gotten weary of the idea of justice and equality, and moved on to other concerns, that Reverend Jackson rose above despair, and kept that righteous flame alive. Through Operation Push, he led boycotts and challenged corporate policies around hiring and contracting, recognizing that civil rights without economic justice was an empty promise.

He backed unions in their organizing efforts and activists in fair wage campaigns, understanding that if the have-nots and the have- little bits ever learned to make common cause across racial lines instead of fighting each other over breadcrumbs, everybody would benefit.

He helped register millions of voters. He fought against biases in the criminal justice system. He drew attention to local abuses of power and called folks at the national level to account. And by the early '80s, he was delivering that message of change and hope across the globe, freeing hostages. from captivity, fighting to end apartheid in South Africa. And then, in 1984, as the powers that be in Washington were rolling back hard-won progress, slashing the social safety net when more and more folks were getting left behind and greed was being trumpeted as a virtue -- see, we've been there before -- he stepped forward once again and said, Send me.

He ran for the presidency of the United States of America. I had just graduated from college during that first campaign. And I was living in New York at the time. I was working to pay off my student loans, eating a lot of tuna fish and Campbell soup. And if I went to a diner, you know, I'd grab some extra crackers. Put it in my pocket. And I was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, and I had in my mind to work for social justice.

[14:45:00]

But even though I was full of good intentions, I was uncertain of how to serve and fighting off self-doubt. And I remember how, at the time, plenty of people -- including, I'm sorry, plenty of black folks -- were dismissing Jesse's chances, suggesting, oh, he just wants attention, he can only get black votes.

But then I remember one night, sitting in my janky apartment, and I got an old black and white TV with the rabbit ears, and I'm kind of jiggering around, and it's about this big. I know young people can't imagine, but the TV was about this big. And I'm watching the Democratic primary debate between him and Walter Mondale and Gary Hart.

And I remember how, when that debate was over, I turned off that TV, and I thought the same thing that I know a lot of people thought that night, even if they didn't want to admit it, that in his ideas, in his platform, in his analysis, in his intelligence, in his insight, Jesse hadn't just held his own. He had owned that stage. He wasn't an intruder.

He wasn't a pretender. He belonged on that stage. And the message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that maybe there wasn't any place, any room, where we didn't belong.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: And that message of fairness and dignity, of justice and hope, that's what the Rainbow Coalition was all about. In 1984, and then again in 1988, Jesse didn't just speak to black folks. He spoke to white folks and Latinos and Asian Americans and the first Americans.

He spoke to family farmers and environmentalists. He spoke to gay rights activists when nobody was talking to gay rights activists. And blue-collar workers. And he gave them the same message, that they mattered, that their voices and their votes counted.

And he invited them to believe -- he invited us to believe in our own power to change America for the better. By the delegate count, Jesse's two candidacies ultimately came up short. But he paved the road for so many others to follow. Doug Wilder became the first elected black governor.

Carol Moseley Braun went to the U.S. Senate. Because of Jesse, the Democratic Party changed its rules, ending the winner-take-all distribution of delegates during presidential primaries, which meant underdogs and outsiders like Bill Clinton or Bernie Sanders could stay competitive and build momentum instead of getting knocked out early. And it was because of that path that he had laid, because of his courage, his audacity, that two decades later, a young Black senator from Chicago's South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination.

(APPLAUSE)

[14:50:00]

OBAMA: I still credit that first run of Jessie's and Harold Washington's campaign for drawing me to Chicago. And I didn't know anybody when I first arrived. And I was working as a community organizer, as it so happens in neighborhoods right around here.

Roseland, Woodlawn, Oak Gill, West Pullman, and I mean these young preachers, like Meeks, and some crazy priest named Flagon. And I guess Jenkins was running around, but he's kind of young. He came a little bit later.

So I'm going to churches and I'm listening to all these amazing preachers, and it was hard work. And half the time I didn't know what I was doing, and progress was slow, and I definitely didn't know how I was going to survive these Chicago winters, because I grew up in Hawaii. But I do remember heading to the PUSH headquarters some Saturday mornings to listen and learn from Reverend Jackson.

And you all remember how on some mornings if there was a major issue going on, the room would be packed to the rafters. And sometimes some celebrity just wanders in. And then some mornings it was kind of low- key.

Either way, though, there'd be announcements that would be made, and Reverend Barrow would say a prayer. And Jesse would sit there, and then finally he'd gather himself up and stand, and he'd start kind of slow. And sometimes he'd talk kind of low, so he couldn't quite catch what he was saying.

So everybody would lean in. And over time, it was that same boundless energy that would emerge, and that same passion, and that same insight. And he'd offer you a master class in economics on a Saturday morning.

And he'd give you a seminar on American history and American politics, and he'd make complicated things plain. And he'd tell stories that would make you laugh one minute and cry the next. And whether you were a bus driver, or a teacher, or a business leader, or a young organizer, you came away from those meetings with a better understanding of how the world worked, how power worked.

And more importantly, he made you believe that if we came together, we could make the world work better. Now, we've been talking about Jesse telling us we are somebody. I am somebody.

And he wasn't just talking to young Black boys like Isaiah, though he loved them fiercely. He wasn't just talking to young Black girls to help them believe, though he believed in them. He was talking about everyone who was left out, everyone who was forgotten, everyone who was unseen, everyone who was unheard.

And in that sense, he was expressing the very essence of what our democracy should be. The ideals at the very heart of the American experiment, the belief that regardless of what we look like, or how we worship, regardless of where our ancestors come from, or how much money we got, we're all part of the American family. We're all endowed with the same inalienable rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[14:55:00]

We're all obligated to answer the call and step forward and take responsibility for making wrongs right, and for caring for our neighbors, and bringing the reality of America a step closer to its glorious ideals. And answering that call isn't always easy, and Reverend Jackson and his family knew that better than most. To do what he did, he would endure all kinds of hatred, and setbacks, and betrayals, and doubters, and death threats.

He would sacrifice, as Jim Reynolds pointed out, the leisure and comfort of what was available to him as a far more financially secure life. And those sacrifices were not his alone. They were shared by his wife and his children. And they bore that burden with grace and strength.

I got to know the Reverend and his family over the years, and as I watched his children follow his example of service, I came to appreciate the conviction that drove him, and that he had passed on, the faith that guided him, and that he had passed on. And it was a faith that didn't waver, a flame that burned bright, even as his body began to fail.

The last time he and I had a chance to visit in person, he was already ailing. It was getting difficult for him to stand, difficult for him to speak. We were in Hyde Park, in a hotel room.

I embraced him and figured we'd just have a low-key visit, maybe he'd need some rest. And he starts coming up with this project, and this initiative, and issues I needed to look into, and here's some commentary that he would suggest, and some phrasing that he thought might work, and maybe we might co-write an article. And listening to him, I couldn't help smiling, because it took me back.

And I started reminiscing with him about those Saturday mornings at Push, and the breakfast that he'd host, you know, away from the full meeting. And I didn't get a chance to go to that until I was a state senator, and probably Meeks invited me. So I was like, you know, I was tagging along with Meeks.

And he'd pull out a piece of paper, you know, he'd scribbled some stuff. He'd start passing out assignments, and pulling together working groups, and asking for updates on the latest campaign. And I'll admit, let's face it, those sessions could run a little long, and did not always follow Robert's rules of order.

But when Jesse called your name, and acknowledged you in that room, especially if you were young, especially if you were just coming up, especially if you weren't sure you could pull off what you thought you might be able to do, especially when you needed help. When he did that, you stood up a little straighter. You knew you'd been seen by this giant.

He'd laid hands on you and let you know you had a contribution to make. And so that day, I told him how much that meant to me, and how much it had meant to so many lives that he impacted. And I told him, thank you, because I'd always be grateful for that legacy of hope. (APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I know I've gone long. It was going to be much shorter until Isaiah spoke. I figure if a Detroit Piston can take up this much time.

(APPLAUSE)

It was beautiful, and I mean that.