A fixture in the civil rights movement and Democratic politics since the 1960s, Mr Jackson was once close to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. In an interview with the Guardian in May 2020, Mr Jackson said: “I was a trailblazer, I was a pathfinder. Twenty years later, the first Black president, Barack Obama, saluted Mr Jackson for making his victory possible. In 1964, Mr Jackson enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary, as he continued to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The 39-year-old Nobel Laureate was the father of non-violent resistance in the 1960s American civil rights movement.

Source: Irish Examiner February 18, 2026 00:58 UTC