The Rev. Jesse Jackson, powerful voice for Black equality, is hospitalized

Pioneering civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson was hospitalized Wednesday in Chicago due to symptoms related to progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurodegenerative disease.

His hospitalization was confirmed in a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a social justice organization founded by Jackson.

The 84-year-old Baptist pastor and political figure has been battling the neurodegenerative disease for more than a decade, according to the release. He was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but the PSP diagnosis was confirmed in April.

PSP is an atypical parkinsonian disorder, a group of neurodegenerative disorders that resemble Parkinson’s disease in some motor symptoms but generally have more rapid progression and a severe prognosis.

This rare brain disease results from a buildup of tau protein in areas of the brain that control body movement, causing progressively degenerative symptoms including balance problems, inability to aim at the eyes, slurred speech, loss of walking, and difficulty swallowing.

Jackson was previously hospitalized in 2021 for COVID-19 with his wife.

The civil rights leader was born in 1941 in the segregated town of Greenville, South Carolina, and rose to prominence alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.

He advocated for businesses to hire more Black Americans under Operation PUSH and founded the Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s to unite marginalized groups and working-class voters around common goals of social, economic, and political justice as well as greater political representation. He was the first black presidential candidate to attract major national support, winning 3.5 million votes in 1984 and 7 million in 1988.