STORY: "We must turn to each other and not on each other, and choose higher ground."

:: A look back at some of the key speeches by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson

:: San Francisco, California / July 17, 1984

"This campaign has taught me much that leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes. Humble enough to admit them. Strong enough to absorb the pain and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving."

:: Washington, D.C. / June 17, 1988

"To me they came and said, 'Well, Jesse Jackson, you have a victory and now are going to call South Africa a terrorist state. Well, America had a victory, the free world had a victory, the people of Soweto had a victory. We're discussing not what Jesse wants, we're discussing what's good for America and what's good for the world."

:: Hammanskraal, South Africa / July 26, 1979

"We need not ease back into the uncivilized era of fighting to be a superior race. That is a contradiction in terms. Because there's but one race, the human race."

Jackson, an inspirational orator and long-time Chicagoan, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2017.

He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting Black voters and many white liberals in mounting unexpectedly strong campaigns but fell short of becoming the first Black major party White House nominee. Ultimately, he never held elective office.

Jackson pursued his political ambitions in the 1980s, relying on his mesmerizing oratory. It was not until fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama's election as president in 2008 that a Black candidate came as close to securing a major party presidential nomination as Jackson.

In 1984, Jackson won 3.3 million votes in Democratic nominating contests, about 18% of those cast, and finished third behind eventual nominee Walter Mondale and Gary Hart in the race for the right to face Republican incumbent Ronald Reagan. His candidacy lost momentum after it became public that Jackson had privately called Jewish people "Hymies" and New York "Hymietown."

Jackson continued his activism later in life, condemning the police killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans in 2020 amid the global racial justice movement.