Article #242139

A fixture in civil rights and Democratic politics since the 1960s, Jackson was once close to Martin Luther King Jr

• Jesse Jackson dies – latest updates

The Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil rights campaigner who was prominent for more than 50 years and who ran strongly for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, has died. He was 84.

“Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.