00:00For over six decades, Jesse Jackson was an architect, really, of American history,
00:03the nation's most influential black figure in the years between the civil rights era
00:08of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama.
00:12Well, on Tuesday morning, he died peacefully, surrounded by his family at the age of 84.
00:17A cause of death wasn't given, but he had been hospitalized in November
00:21for the treatment of a rare, particularly severe neurodegenerative condition
00:25called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, which can often be mistaken for Parkinson's disease,
00:31which he announced he had been diagnosed with in 2017.
00:34But he leaves behind an indelible mark on the country's civil rights movement,
00:38from the front lines of the Jim Crow era South to the halls of international diplomacy.
00:42His life really was a marathon of advocacy that redefines the black American experience.
00:48He was born in South Carolina in 1941 to an unwed teenage mother
00:53before rising to become a civil rights icon as a youth protege of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
00:59And when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, Jackson became a standard bearer for the next generation
01:06when he founded PUSH, that's the People United to Save Humanity.
01:10He did that to empower what he called the voiceless and the vulnerable.
01:14Well, in the 80s, he mounted two compelling runs to be the Democratic presidential candidates,
01:19building what he called a rainbow coalition, which inspired an alliance of black, white, Latino, Asian, native and queer people.
01:27And though he didn't win the nomination, he did something arguably more significant,
01:31registering millions of new voters and proving that a black man could be a serious contender for the White House.
01:39Despite his influence, however, he never really achieved the commanding moral stature of Dr. King
01:44or the ultimate political triumph that was attained by Barack Obama when he won the presidency.
01:49But his mantra to keep hope alive resounded with many, despite some personal failings,
01:55giving his critics a source of ammunition against him and also being a source of annoyance for his admirers.
02:00But his visions for the country laid the groundwork for decades of Democratic leaders that followed in his path.
02:11What sort of relationship, if any, did Jesse Jackson have with the current president, Donald Trump?
02:24Well, Reverend Jesse Jackson and former and current president, Donald Trump, shared a long, if unusual, public history.
02:32I say former because they were quite in touch with each other at one point.
02:37Jackson praised Trump in the 90s for supporting minority entrepreneurs,
02:42but became a sharp critic during Trump's political rise, especially during his first term in office,
02:48warning that his rhetoric seeded the clouds of division and fear.
02:52Trump has, though, rarely been critical of Jackson,
02:55but has praised, raised past interactions between the two of them to dispel accusations of racism.
03:02In some ways, their relationship is almost kind of emblematic of Donald Trump's political life
03:06before he decided to run for the presidency and shifted his viewpoint somewhat.
03:11During the late 90s, like I said, Trump was a vocal supporter of Jackson's Rainbow Push coalition.
03:16He also backed his Wall Street project, which aimed to increase minority representation in the financial sector.
03:24Trump even donated office space at 40 Wall Street to the project
03:28and provided financial backing for some of Jackson's initiatives as well.
03:32In 98 and 99, Jackson publicly praised Trump for his commitment to diversity,
03:38calling him a friend and noting that he seized the need for inclusion.
03:42Of course, that would change when Trump came into office
03:44and dispelled all of the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that the government had put in place.
03:50Jackson's viewpoint on Trump, though, started to change
03:53when Trump became a leading voice of the birther movement,
03:55which falsely claims that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States.
03:59He'd since distanced himself, calling his claims unfortunate,
04:03and then ultimately became harsher in his words,
04:05calling him divisive and saying that he wasn't the presidential candidate that he knew.
04:10He would...
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