Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader who scored a surprise win in Alaska’s 1988 Democratic caucuses, dies at 84

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Feb. 17, 2026 – Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the Chicago-based civil rights personality and radical founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition whose two presidential campaigns helped reshape Democratic politics, has died at age 84.

Jackson notched one of his most unlikely political successes here in Alaska: A narrow statewide victory in Alaska’s Democratic precinct caucuses during his 1988 run for president. Alaska’s contest was a caucus — not a primary — and it produced a surprise result shortly after Super Tuesday, when Jackson edged then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in the statewide preference tally. Alaska Democrats, not known for their centrist appetites, repeated that pattern in 2016 when they caucused for Bernie Sanders over the eventual Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.

With about 90% of Alaska’s roughly 442 precincts reporting from the March, 1988 meetings, Jackson had 872 votes (about 35%) to Dukakis’ 769 (about 31%), with “uncommitted” close behind at 768 (about 31%).

The Alaska showing mattered in a race often portrayed through a Lower 48 lens: Jackson’s coalition proved it could compete in places that didn’t fit the usual demographic assumptions, and Alaska’s result became part of the narrative of his stronger 1988 campaign as he battled Dukakis for delegates and momentum. 

Four years earlier, Alaska Democrats also used caucuses, and the state’s 1984 results cut the other way.

Reports from that March 1984 cycle show Sen. Gary Hart winning Alaska’s Democratic caucuses, with former Vice President Walter Mondale trailing, a snapshot of the era’s Democratic split between a left-leaning insurgency and the party establishment. 

Nationally, Jackson rose to prominence in the civil rights movement and remained a consequential figure in American public life for decades after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He later built organizations focused on partisan political outcomes, while becoming a fixture of presidential politics, both as a candidate and as a power broker inside the Democratic Party. 

In recent years, Jackson’s health declined after he was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disorder; the Associated Press reported he died at home in Chicago due to complications from the disease. 

Born on Oct. 8, 1941 in Greenville, SC, Jackson entered the University of Illinois on a football scholarship and later transferred to North Carolina A&T State University, where he graduated in 1964. He studied theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and worked in the civil rights movement with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was ordained in 1968 and earned his Master of Divinity degree from Chicago Theological Seminary in 2000.

Jackson has received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees and was a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities, including Howard, Yale, Princeton, Morehouse, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Hampton.

In 1997, Jackson was appointed by President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as “Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa.”

For Alaska political historians, his 1988 caucus win remains the state’s standout Jackson moment. And it showed the country that, although Alaska is known as a red state, its Democrats lean to the hard left.