Woefully belatedly but seeking hope and light, we honor the remarkable life of Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, who over six decades "stepped forward again and again and again" to fight for racial, social, economic justice for millions of the disenfranchised. At a moving "Homegoing," his grown children offered soul-stirring tributes to the impassioned, "prophetic voice" of a man of faith who doggedly "opened doors, kicked them down when necessary, so that others were no longer locked out....You fought a good fight."

Two ceremonies over two days of prayers, pride, tears, laughs, eulogies and gospel music sought in their own singular ways to celebrate the long rich life life of Jesse Jackson - pastor, activist, organizer, two-time presidential candidate, and head of an ever-evolving "rainbow coalition” of the poor and dispossessed that sought to bridge all conceivable divides. When Jackson died in February at age 84, he was hailed as "a civil rights giant," and he was. On April 4, 1968 in Memphis, the then-26-year-old aide to Martin Luther King was standing in the courtyard below the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, talking to King moments before he was shot and killed. Jackson carried on King's work in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference until 1971, when he resigned amidst leadership changes to form what became the Rainbow PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) Coalition.

But his work grew ever broader, working for decades on multiple fronts for multiple social justice issues in America and around the world. He pushed for voting rights, Native rights, Palestinian rights, welfare rights, tenants' rights, prisoners' rights, women's and gay and trans rights; he led boycotts, fair wage battles, union organizing campaigns; he fought against apartheid in South Africa and helped facilitate the release of U.S. hostages in Iran. He spent years spreading the mantra, per his iconic 1972 appearance on Sesame Street with a ragtag, multi--hued bunch of kids, "I am somebody." A simple message with a big meaning, it hit its mark again and again. "When I hear the phrase 'I am somebody,'" said 13-year-old Daniel Russell-Vincent, attending the March 6 People’s Celebration with his parents, "that makes me think, 'You're going to have something to do with this world.'"

That official, five-hour gathering - video here - was held at the 10,000-seat sanctuary of the House of Hope Church on Chicago’s South Side. It drew three former US presidents, white and black pols from Maxine Waters (87) to Tennessee's Justin Pearson (31), local pastors and dignitaries, the presidents of Congo and South Africa, and thousands of regular Chicagoans who skipped work, drove for hours, and stood in long lines to "show up and say what (Jesse) meant to us, and more importantly what he stood for....Every single person here has a Jesse Jackson story." "The city of Chicago shared him with the whole world," said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. "He was ours, and we were his." "This man has been here my whole life, saying, 'I got you,'" said Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side. "That's what Rev. Jesse Jackson means to us in Chicago."

The speeches were eloquent. Bill Clinton: "He lived a big life. He lived with his head and with his heart." Kamala Harris: "He did not waste time waiting, even when the doors in front of him were barred and bolted." Joe Biden: "Jesse kept hope alive for us." Barack Obama, with the stately oratory he draws on in moments of loss, spoke of a child of a poor single mother whose father rejected him, whose first political act was to lead seven black students into a whites-only college library, where they sat down, refused to leave and "got arrested for reading. Think about that. That's how freedom opens its doors." In the Book of Isaiah, he said, "God is looking for a messenger to guide a hardened and resistant people, and the Lord asks, 'Who shall I send?' to which Isaiah replies, 'Here I am, Lord, send me.' Send me, Jesse said, even as a young man. And the world got a little bit better."

He recounted Jackson's life, from his sharecropper family to the Chicago Theological Seminary to Operation Breadbasket to, after MLK's murder, a "country weary of the idea of justice," where "a talker with his immense gifts...rose above despair, and kept that righteous flame alive." "When the poor and dispossessed needed a champion and the country needed healing, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson stepped forward again and again and again, and said, 'Send me,'" Obama declared, "even while growing up in a world separate and unequal, a world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far...'I am somebody.' He was talking about everyone who was left out, everyone who was forgotten, everyone who was unseen (and) unheard. And in that sense he was expressing the very essence of what our democracy should be, the ideals at the very heart of the American experiment."

Jackson also "paved the way for so many to follow." In 1984, as another child of a single mom and new college grad "with good intentions but uncertain how to serve," living in a "janky........

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