Rev. Jesse Jackson's daughter reflects on his legacy: 'Before it was fashionable, he was a girl dad'
Santita Jackson, the daughter of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, reflected on her father's legacy as a civil rights icon and opened up about who he was as a father in an interview with ABC News.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson died on Tuesday morning at the age of 84 after a long illness, his family confirmed in a statement.
"My father wanted to be in our lives. He wanted to be present for us," Santita Jackson told ABC News' Kyra Phillips. "He said, 'the greatest present I can give you is my presence,' and so there was never a day in my life where I didn't speak with him. ... and even now, I feel his presence."
Rev. Jesse Jackson was a pioneering civil rights leader, a protege of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and a Baptist minister and politician who ran for president in 1984 and 1988.
"My father was a man of tremendous courage," Jackson said, reflecting on his calling to run for president as a Black man and the death threats he got amid his campaigns and the difficulty his family experienced as they feared for his safety.
"He was the most threatened political presidential candidate in history up to that point in time, and he had to get his Secret Service protection well in advance," she said. "He was part of a group of men and women who were willing to die for their beliefs."
As a singer, Santita Jackson toured with Roberta Flack and famously sang the National Anthem at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1997. She said that her father was "a girl dad," even "before it was fashionable," and always "believed" in her.
"I know that to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord, and that is what gives me so much comfort today, because he is no longer in pain," she said, reflecting on her father's death.
In November 2025, Jackson was hospitalized in Chicago for treatment of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurological disorder that he had been managing for a decade, according to a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights organization Jackson founded.
He is survived by his wife Jacqueline Jackson, whom he married in 1962, and six children.
Santita Jackson said that her father fulfilled his dream of becoming a preacher like his grandfather and following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"He was faithful to the assignment that Dr. King gave to him more than 60 years ago," Jackson said. "And so all I can say is, job well done."
