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Family, former presidents and a Hall of Famer give Rev. Jesse Jackson a final sendoff
The casket with the Rev. Jesse Jackson is seen before the Public Homegoing Service at the House of Hope in Chicago, on Friday, March 6, 2026.
Erin Hooley/AP
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Erin Hooley/AP
The rare qualities that distinguished the Rev. Jesse Jackson — his fortitude as a civil rights leader, and the love he shared as a mentor, a friend and father — were praised time and again on Friday, as his family and a roster of luminaries, including three former U.S. presidents, gathered for Jackson’s funeral service on Chicago’s South Side.
Repeatedly, it came down to three words that Jackson made famous.
“I am! Somebody!” the crowd chanted in the House of Hope megachurch, repeating Jackson’s belief that every person matters, no matter their race or economic standing.
“He paved the road,” former President Barack Obama said. He noted that Jackson brought social change, and also proved, in the 1980s, that a Black presidential candidate could be taken seriously.
“His voice called on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, ‘Send me,’” Obama said. “Wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it’s in our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our cities.”
Jackson’s son, Yusef, gave vivid detail to Jackson’s commitment to helping those who need it most.
“I intend to die with my shoes on,” Yusef Jackson said, quoting his father’s refusal to let health problems stop him from aspiring to help people in war-torn Ukraine, and Americans struggling with food insecurity. Along the way, Yusef Jackson said, his father also managed to find time to share his love for his children and grandchildren.
“Keep hope alive,” Yusef Jackson said in closing, echoing another of Jesse Jackson’s mottos.
Speakers emphasized Jackson’s message of hope throughout the service, especially as some referenced the Trump administration.
Obama said “it’s hard to hope” when “every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day we’re told … to fear each other, to turn on each other and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all.”
Former presidential candidate Kamala Harris said she predicted how President Trump’s second term would play out.
“I’m not into saying ‘I told you so,’ but we did see it coming,” Harris said. “But what I did not predict is that we would not have Jesse Jackson with us to get through this.”
Several speakers credited Jackson for sowing the seeds that would carry them through storied careers.
For Judge Greg Mathis, from the hit daytime television show Judge Mathis, hearing Jackson say “I am somebody” began a domino effect that would catapult him to success in the worlds of law and entertainment.
“Those were the three words that I heard 50 years ago this month that changed my life forever,” Mathis said.
He first met Jackson when he was a teenager incarcerated in Detroit. Jackson had stopped at the facility where Mathis was being held during a speaking tour. Mathis wanted to join Jackson’s cause right then and there. But it wouldn’t happen that fast. Jackson told Mathis to go to college first.
After graduating, Mathis worked on Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, and was later elected to a judgeship in Detroit. Years later, he reunited with Jackson to serve as vice president of Jackson’s nonprofit, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Then, Mathis got the offer to be on television.
“‘Oh yeah, you gotta take this,’” Mathis said, recalling Jackson’s reaction. “‘But primarily, I want you to take this so that you can spread a message of hope to millions and millions of people who you will inspire to overcome their obstacles, as we’ve overcome ours.’”
Obama reminisced about being a college student while watching Jackson’s first presidential debate.
“When that debate was over, I turned off that TV, and I thought the same thing that I know a lot of people thought, even if they didn’t want to admit it. That in his idea, and his platform, in his analysis, in his intelligence, in his insight, Jesse hadn’t just held his own. He had owned that stage,” Obama said.
He continued, “And the message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that there wasn’t any place, any room, where we didn’t belong.”
One of the most emotional speeches came from NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, a longtime friend of Jackson’s who recalled meeting the civil rights leader when Thomas was a child in Chicago. In those days, Thomas said, his family was living in poverty, relying on a soup line for sustenance.
That’s when, Thomas said, he and his mother encountered Jackson walking down a street.
When Jackson saw the boy, he bent down and looked Thomas in the eye.
“When society was telling me I was a nobody, when society was telling me we don’t even want to go to school with you,” Thomas said, Jackson shared a different message.
“You are somebody,” Jackson told Thomas.
President Trump’s vision for his National Garden of American Heroes is growing larger and most likely more expensive than his initial estimates, with the latest plans calling for reflecting pools, dining facilities and an amphitheater alongside 250 life-size statues of notable Americans.
The plans have expanded to the point that they could require significant redevelopment of West Potomac Park, an area of mostly sports fields near the National Mall, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The statues alone could cost more than the $40 million approved for the project by Congress, according to the Trump administration’s estimate.
Based on the latest renderings, the Garden of Heroes could rank among the more expensive and time-consuming projects Mr. Trump has undertaken as he works to remake the nation’s capital in his own style.
Construction has yet to begin, raising questions about whether Mr. Trump will run out of time — and money — to deliver on his ambitions before the end of his second term. If Mr. Trump were to solicit donor funds, as he has done with his ballroom project, it could renew ethical concerns about attempts to court favor with the White House.
The latest drawings depict a “Heroes Walk,” connecting themed areas dedicated to categories of American figures, including politicians, soldiers, scientists, activists, artists and athletes. The set of honorees is eclectic: George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Amelia Earhart are on a list circulated by the administration, along with Elvis Presley, Kobe Bryant, Alfred Hitchcock, Dr. Seuss and others.
Accompanying the statues would be formal gardens, reflecting pools and plazas arranged in a style reminiscent of classical European planning traditions, according to renderings reviewed by The Times. The Trump administration has yet to settle on a final plan or submit it to any oversight board.
One of the most prominent features in the plans would be a large amphitheater carved into the landscape at the water’s edge, suggesting the space is intended to function both as a performance venue and as a ceremonial gathering place.
The plans also include cafes and open recreational spaces.
“President Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism,” said Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman. “President Trump continues to beautify and honor our nation’s capital during America’s historic semiquincentennial celebration.”
Proposed in his first term, Mr. Trump initially hoped to have the project completed by July 4 of this year, the 250th anniversary of American independence. But administration officials are now hoping to have a few dozen statues ready to unveil in time, with the remainder of the project to be completed by the end of Mr. Trump’s term.
Sanitizing History
Mr. Trump first proposed a Garden of Heroes during his first term, at a time of widespread protesting over the murder of George Floyd in police custody. Protesters had toppled statues of Confederate generals and leaders, and in some instances vandalized monuments to national icons like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Trump denounced those actions as attempts to “erase our values” and he signed an executive order authorizing the monument garden. The election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president interrupted those plans, but since Mr. Trump took office for a second time, he has taken the project up again in earnest.
Paul M. Farber, the director of Monument Lab, a nonprofit public art, history and design studio based in Philadelphia, noted that the description of the historical figures being honored portrays a sanitized version of American history.
Mr. Trump’s executive order detailed most of the figures to be featured with statues, and a White House task force overseeing festivities for the country’s 250th anniversary also published a list, with biographies of those selected.
The description of Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, praises the civil rights leader for having a “can-do” spirit, but makes no direct mention of the racism that he fought.
“To not name the injustice that made people ‘significant Americans’ is a sanitizing of the history,” Mr. Farber said. “Whether it’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett or Frederick Douglass, when you look at the fine print, you understand the Faustian bargain here, which is representation at the cost of real history.”
Under the “journalists” category, there are two honorees: Edward R. Murrow of CBS, and Alex Trebek, who hosted the game show “Jeopardy!”
The National Endowment for the Humanities has solicited “preliminary concepts” for individual statues from artists who must be American citizens. Mr. Trump has directed that subjects be depicted in a “realistic” manner, with no modernist or abstract designs allowed.
Artists who are selected will receive awards of up to $200,000 per statue, which must be made of marble, granite, bronze, copper or brass. (That price is a relative bargain. Outdoor public sculptures can cost roughly $1 million each to produce in cities like New York.)
Still — even if the statues cost $200,000 each, for a total of $50 million — there is not enough money appropriated by Congress to pay for them. And then there is the matter of the redevelopment of the land, the reflecting pools and all the rest in the latest plan.
Hurdles Ahead
Since the start of his second term, Mr. Trump has embarked on what he has characterized as an effort to beautify the nation’s capital. He has run into hurdles.
The president is in the midst of a legal battle over whether he can unilaterally build a $400 million ballroom at the White House with donor funds, after he abruptly demolished the historic East Wing. He is also in court fighting to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which he has renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center, for a major renovation. He has proposed building a 250-foot triumphal arch near Washington’s border with Arlington, Va. Next to his proposed garden is a golf course that Mr. Trump wants to make into a luxury destination.
His plans for the Garden of Heroes have yet to go before any review panel.
Should Mr. Trump leave office without finishing his signature projects, the next administration would be faced with choices about whether to finish them or abandon them.
It’s an issue other countries have faced as well, said Ken Lum, a sculptor, professor and Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
“I don’t think it’s like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, where it was this great project of Gaudi and people said, ‘No, we must finish this,’” Mr. Lum said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of debate in terms of, ‘We don’t need to finish this. Maybe we should even take it down.’”
Mr. Trump has tapped several people closely associated with the National Civic Art Society, a nonprofit that endorses traditional styles of architecture, to oversee the Garden of Heroes, according to three people close to the project.
The garden would most likely need to overcome some legal hurdles, including the possible need for exemption under the Commemorative Works Act, which restricts what can be built around some federal lands in Washington. The site’s proximity to the Potomac also could introduce concerns about ecological disruption.
Mr. Trump appears to have left himself room to make five last-minute nominations; there are only 245 people on a list the administration distributed. The White House did not reply to questions about whom he would choose to fill extra slots.
In an interview with The New York Times in January, Mr. Trump described his plans for the Garden of Heroes as “beautiful.”
“That’s going to be most likely right on the Potomac River,” he said, adding: “It’s going to be a beautiful complex. You’re going to have the hall of — you know, it’s — we’ll call it a hall. We call it a lot of things, but the memorials or statues are going to — it’s going to be beautiful.”
Nicole Saphier, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general.
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Theo Wargo/Getty Images
President Trump has nominated Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, for the role of surgeon general. It’s his third pick for this position, often called “the nation’s doctor,” responsible for promoting health and wellness to the general public in the United States.
Saphier is expected to be more acceptable to Republican lawmakers, than Dr. Casey Means, Trump’s previous choice. His first pick, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, was withdrawn following scrutiny over how she had represented her medical credentials.
Trump described Saphier, who directs breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, as a “STAR physician” and an “INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR” in his April 30 nomination post on Truth Social.
The same day, Trump blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician, for having “stood in the way” of Means getting confirmed as surgeon general. He accused Cassidy of “intransigence and political games.”
Saphier will be facing scrutiny from the same committee members who were doubtful of Means.
Means told Politico that Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also opposed her nomination, effectively tanking her confirmation.
All three Republican lawmakers serve on the influential Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which Cassidy chairs. The committee holds confirmation hearings for nominated health officials and determines whether to advance them to a full Senate vote.
In response, the Republican members of the Senate HELP Committee wrote, “It’s clear she did not have the votes,” in a post on X.
Does Saphier have a better chance than Means?
While a confirmation hearing has not been scheduled yet, Saphier can expect many questions about her qualifications, views on vaccines and other topics she’s publicly addressed.
David Mansdoerfer, former deputy assistant secretary of health at the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Trump administration, says she likely faces a warm reception from Republicans, saying she’s “extremely strong on some of the core base issues.”
“[She’s great on] the pro-life issue, on chronic disease and prevention. She speaks a lot to the MAHA influence, especially to the suburban moms,” he says, referring to the Make American Healthy Again movement, an interest group that Republicans are trying to win in the midterm elections.
In addition to being a practicing physician, Saphier is also a health influencer and former medical contributor to Fox News from 2018 to this week, a Fox News spokesperson confirmed. She currently sells herbal supplement drops that promote “focus” and “calm” and hosts a podcast called Wellness Unmasked on iHeartRadio. In 2020, she published a book titled Make America Healthy Again — years before the phrase coalesced into a movement led by current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Saphier is a clear contrast from Means in some key respects. She is an active licensed physician — which Means wasn’t — practicing at a top academic medical center. These credentials make her a “reasonable choice” for surgeon general, says Dr. Georges Benjamin, CEO of the American Public Health Association.
Benjamin had described Trump’s previous pick, Means, to NPR as “less qualified professionally than any other surgeon general in history.”
In February, Saphier addressed Means’ nomination on her podcast, saying the surgeon general’s main role is public health messaging, and for that they need to be “a trusted messenger.”
“They need the respect of not only …the American people that they are communicating to, but they also need the respect of the administration, which they are working together with,” she said, “And also the [respect of] medical professionals, the medical organizations.” In Saphier’s opinion at the time, that’s where Means was falling short.
Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the 20th surgeon general in the first Trump administration, said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition that he expects Saphier to get the respect of the medical community, along with the public and the Administration.
But Saphier’s focus on individual care is just one piece of public health, Adams says. “She tends to see things through a diagnosis and treatment lens because that’s what cancer docs do. It’s clear when you look at the book she wrote that she does not think of things through a public health and societal lens.”
For instance, “she talks about personal responsibility a lot, but you can’t eat healthy if you are having your SNAP benefits cut or if the cost of groceries is going through the roof because of inflation. The broader societal context actually matters,” he says.
Still Adams wrote on X, “Overall, this is a solid pick. I believe she’ll be confirmed and that she has both the clinical background and the temperament to do a good job.”
Views on vaccines and other credentials
The Trump administration has been trying to pivot away from the focus on vaccines ahead of the midterm elections. Secretary Kennedy’s attempts to make sweeping changes to the vaccine schedule have polled poorly with voters, and been blocked by court challenges from leading U.S. health groups.
Still, the topic will likely be front and center in an upcoming confirmation hearing for the role of surgeon general.
Saphier’s views on the topic are not completely aligned with Kennedy. She criticized his attempts to link vaccines with autism in an op-ed last year in the Wall Street Journal. “When it comes to autism, we can’t afford to chase ghosts,” she wrote, advocating for more research into genetic and environmental causes.
But she disagrees with some public health recommendations on the childhood vaccine schedule. While vaccines “really can save lives,” Saphier said in a February 2025 Fox News Digital video, “I do think that the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics need to be less stringent on these schedules,” she said, specifically mentioning the hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccines for children.
Based on what Saphier has said publicly, “she’s been opposed to vaccine mandates, but she’s not anti-vaccine,” says Benjamin from APHA.
At her confirmation hearing in February, former surgeon general pick Dr. Casey Means articulated a similar position, which served as a sticking point for some senators.
Role of surgeon general
Getting confirmed in this role is high stakes, says Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the 17th surgeon general in the George W. Bush administration. Of all the competencies required for the role, political affiliation or experience as a television commentator are not high on his list.
The job is “to protect, promote and advance the health, safety and security of the nation” and to represent the U.S. government when disasters and public health emergencies strike in the U.S. and abroad, he says.
The surgeon general commands the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of the eight uniformed services of the United States, with thousands of members that have earned their ranks in a career of service, Carmona says. The surgeon general’s rank is three-star vice admiral.
For this role, Carmona would prioritize experience in leadership and public health. The surgeon general should have “the credibility to sit at the table with foreign ministers and carry the message of the United States and work with our allies.”
As surgeon general, Carmona fielded questions from lawmakers and the media about a wide range of public health topics, from cancer to emergency preparedness for biological and nuclear hazards.
For someone being considered for the role, “I want to know that you have expertise in public health besides clinical medicine,” he says, “Have you dealt with vaccination issues? Have you dealt with clean water and sanitation? How about air pollution? … That’s what a surgeon general does.”
Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas.
The Defense Department is also canceling a plan developed under the Biden administration to place a missile-equipped artillery unit in Europe.
The moves will return U.S. forces in Europe to the level they were in 2022, before Russia began its war in Ukraine, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning process. Last year, the Pentagon redeployed a brigade in Romania and did not send replacement forces.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the withdrawal would be completed over the next six to 12 months.
“This decision follows a thorough review of the department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” he said.
The Defense Department — particularly during both of President Trump’s terms — has for several years considered decreasing the military presence in Germany. But senior defense officials privately made it clear that they wanted the move to be seen as a punishment for Germany, whose recent comments about the U.S. war in Iran have annoyed Mr. Trump.
Earlier this week, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had “humiliated” the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.
“The Americans obviously have no strategy,” Mr. Merz said.
Mr. Trump then took to Truth Social, his social media site, to vent.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he wrote on Thursday.
Later, he added: “The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!”
On Friday, while announcing the decision, a senior Pentagon official said that Germany’s failure to contribute to the Iran war effort had frustrated the United States, and that the country’s rhetoric was inappropriate and unhelpful.
The announcement, and the criticism of Germany, represents a shift for Pentagon officials, who recently had praised Germany’s efforts to increase military spending and take over more of the burden of supporting Ukraine.
Even if the Pentagon pulls 5,000 troops out of Germany, the country would still host the second-largest U.S. troop presence in the world, at more than 30,000, behind only Japan.
Defense officials say the United States depends on its bases in Germany to stage many of its operations in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
The Iran war has made that clear. Many U.S. troops evacuated from bases in the Middle East that were targeted by Iran were moved to Germany. And many of the U.S. troops wounded in the war have been taken to Germany — to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base — for treatment.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command and European Command are also headquartered in Germany.
Defense officials said the reduction would not directly affect Landstuhl or other medical facilities in Germany where U.S. troops receive care.
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