00:00When Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008, becoming the United States' first
00:05black president, it was enough to bring Jesse Jackson to tears.
00:10It was a moment Jackson himself had paved the way for.
00:13He ran for president twice in the 1980s and was the first African American to have significant
00:18success at the ballot box.
00:21In a statement, Obama wrote,
00:23Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a true giant, adding,
00:27we stood on his shoulders.
00:29Jesse Jackson changed American politics.
00:32He was a consequential and transformative figure.
00:36Kamala Harris, the first black woman to become vice president, said in a statement,
00:40Reverend Jesse Jackson was one of America's great patriots.
00:43He spent his life summoning all of us to fulfill the promise of America and building the coalitions
00:48to make the promise real.
00:50Friends and supporters also paid tribute outside the headquarters of Jackson's Rainbow
00:55Push Coalition in Chicago.
00:57I felt like he was like family. I mean, he did a lot of things for me and the community
01:02as well.
01:02What I am somebody means is that all you have to do is just keep pushing,
01:09pushing, keep pushing. And that's what Jesse taught us.
01:13In a statement, former President Bill Clinton said that Jesse Jackson championed human dignity.
01:17And former President Joe Biden described Jackson as a man of God and of the people.
01:22For his part, President Trump wrote of Jackson,
01:25he was a good man with lots of personality, grit and street smarts.
01:29Jackson was a protege of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and was at his side when
01:35King was assassinated in 1968.
01:37King's daughter Bernice called Jackson a courageous bridge builder,
01:41posting a photo of her father and Jackson with the caption,
01:45both now ancestors.
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