SACP pays tribute to revered civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson

Friday, 20 February 2026:- The South African Communist Party (SACP) pays tribute to revered civil rights icon, Reverend Jesse Jackson, who spent his life in the struggle against racial segregation and all other forms of human subjugation.

The SACP conveys its message of heartfelt condolences to his family as well as the justice loving people of the world for the sad loss.

From a young age, Reverend Jackson threw himself into the struggle against all forms of human subjugation, chief of which was racial subjugation in the US. He waged the struggle for non-racialism and non-sexism till the end of his life.

Reverend Jackson did not limit his struggle to the streets of the US, however. He understood Dr Martin Luther King Jr's belief that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Accordingly, he fully supported the South African struggle against the apartheid system. A true friend of the South African liberation movement, he spared no resources in practical solidarity with the people of South Africa, and in 1990 was there to witness the release of President Nelson Mandela from prison.

In paying tribute to Reverend Jesse Jackson, the SACP reiterates the importance of waging a relentless fight against injustices happening across the world, the most urgent being the genocide against the Palestinian people by the apartheid Israeli settler state. The SACP will deepen its efforts towards uniting the people of South Africa, not least through the uniting of all the left forces in our country, to deepen the struggle against both colonial and apartheid legacy towards socialism.