In the first race, he won more than 18% of the primary vote and a handful of primaries and caucuses.

“Merely by being black and forcing other candidates to consider his very real potential to garner black votes, which they need, Jackson has had an impact,” read a 1984 New York Times profile.

Four years later, he built on that success by winning 11 primaries and caucuses.

Jackson began his work as an organizer with the Congress of Racial Equality, participating in marches and sit-ins. He attended North Carolina A&T State University and graduated with a degree in sociology. He began rallying student support for King during his divinity studies at Chicago Theological Seminary and participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama.

Shortly afterward, Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, to work alongside King full time. He drew praise from King as a young man running the SCLC’s economic development and empowerment program, Operation Breadbasket — “we knew he was going to do a good job, but he’s done better than a good job,” King said.

As he grew as an organizer, Jackson married Jacqueline Brown, who survives him, in 1962. They have five children, including former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.

Jackson, who was at the motel in Memphis, Tennessee, with King when he was assassinated in 1968, did not let up after King’s death. He took his vision for Black liberation even further by founding People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, in 1971. He resigned from the SCLC that year to start PUSH after he was suspended from the organization; he was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain. PUSH worked to improve economic conditions of Black communities in the country and later expanded to politics with direct action campaigns and social areas through a weekly radio show and awards for Black people.

Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid prompted the launch of his National Rainbow Coalition, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s policies and advocated for social programs, voting rights and affirmative action. PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition merged in 1996 and are now the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

His 1984 campaign angered some Democrats who said his ideas were too left-leaning and would hurt the party in the general election. Jackson dismissed the concerns.

“The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near-poor back on front of the American agenda,” Jackson said of the 1984 campaign in a 1996 interview with PBS. “This is a dangerous mission, and yet it’s a necessary mission!”

Jackson’s 1984 campaign was marred when he referred to Jewish people as “hymies” and called New York City “hymietown” in a Washington Post interview. He initially denied having made the remarks and accused Jewish people of targeting his campaign. He later admitted having used the slur and offered an impassioned apology.

In 1991, Jackson was elected as one of Washington, D.C.’s two “shadow senators” to lobby for D.C. statehood and served one term.

Jackson also helped win the release of several detained and captured Americans around the world. In 1999, he negotiated the release of three U.S. soldiers being held in Yugoslavia. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for those efforts a year later.

Jackson’s other successes included winning the release of a U.S. Navy pilot in 1984 from Syrian captors after his plane was shot down, at least 16 Americans held in Cuba in 1984, 700 women and children from Iraq in 1990 and two Gambian Americans from prison in the West African country in 2012.

MILAN — Before Monday night, it might have been uncouth to admit the goal for the U.S. women’s hockey team has been an Olympic gold medal all along.

Now, after their sixth consecutive win has secured them a place in Thursday night’s gold medal match, there is no reason anymore for the team to pretend otherwise.

“Now that we’re here, that’s the bullseye,” said coach John Wroblewski after Monday’s win.

The U.S. entered the 2026 Olympic Games as favorites to win the gold medal after a series of dominating wins over their rivals, Canada, the defending gold medal winners, over the course of the past year.

The Americans have lived up to that promise in this Olympic run so far. They have outscored their opponents 31 goals to 1 through six matches, the last five of which have been shutouts, an Olympic record. And their undefeated record includes a 5-0 win over the Canadians, their likely opponent in Thursday’s final pending the results of a Monday semifinal match-up against Switzerland.

“Our play is only going to go up from here, honestly. I don’t even think we’re at the peak,” said Hayley Scamurra, whose second period goal pushed the score to 5-0.

In the Americans’ semifinal victory over Sweden, Team USA showed off their offensive capabilities during a four-minute stretch at the end of the second period. In quick succession, they doubled the score from 2-0 to 4-0 — first on a perfectly placed wrist shot by Abbey Murphy, followed by an Laila Edwards rocket from the blue line that tipped off Kendall Coyne Schofield’s stick.

In a desperate move to save their shot at a gold medal, Sweden swapped out goaltenders — only for Britta Curl-Salemme to send a pass across the crease into the waiting stick of Scamurra for the final goal of the game.

“Maybe today we needed a plexiglass in front of our net to stay in the game,” Swedish coach Ulf Lundberg said afterward.

That level of offense combined with six dominating performances by the team’s two starting goaltenders, Aerin Frankel and Gwyneth Phillips, has led to a high level of confidence. “We can tell when we’re on a roll. We can tell when we’re buzzing,” said defenseman Cayla Barnes after the game.

“The team is playing so, so well in front of me defensively. They’re making my job easy, making the plays in front of me predictable so I can do my job,” said Frankel, who played the entirety of Monday’s game. “Any time I can focus on my job and let them do theirs, that’s why we’re finding so much success.”

The U.S. has won two previous Olympic gold medals, one in 1998 and the other in 2018. Canada has won all five other Olympic tournaments.

An American gold medal would cap the historic career of team captain Hilary Knight, 36, who is playing in her record fifth Olympic Games. And it would give a new generation of young talent on Team USA — including the 22-year-old Laila Edwards to 23-year-olds Abbey Murphy and Caroline Harvey — their first golden achievement of what USA Hockey hopes will be a long and fruitful national team career together.

“It’s so important that they’ve gotten that time and we’ve given them those opportunities because they’re so confident when they get out there. You would never assume they’re 20, 21, 22 years old,” said Taylor Heise, 25. “I learn so much from them, and they keep me young at heart as well.”