[Verse 1] I was dreaming in my dreaming Of an aspect bright and fair And my sleeping, it was broken But my dream, it lingered near In the form of shining valleys Where the pure air recognized And my senses newly opened I awakened to the cry
[Pre-Chorus] That the people have the power To redeem the work of fools Upon the meek the graces shower It's decreed: the people rule
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Verse 2] Vengeful aspect became suspect And bending low as if to hear And the armies ceased advancing Because the people had their ear And the shepherds and the soldiers Lay beneath the stars Exchanging visions and laying arms To waste in the dust
[Pre-Chorus] In the form of shining valleys Where the pure air recognized And my senses newly opened I awakened to the cry
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Verse 3] Where there were deserts I saw fountains Like cream the waters rise And we strolled there together With none to laugh or criticize And the leopard and the lamb Lay together truly bound I was hoping in my hoping To recall what I had found
[Pre-Chorus] I was dreaming in my dreaming God knows a purer view As I lay down to my sleeping I commit my dream to you
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Bridge] The power to dream, to rule To wrestle the world from fools It's decreed: the people rule It's decreed: the people rule Listen. I believe everything we dream Can come to pass through our union We can turn the world around We can turn the earth's revolution
[Chorus] We have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Outro] The power to dream, to rule To wrestle the world from fools It's decreed: the people rule It's decreed: the people rule We have the power We have the power The people have the power We have the power
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Jesse Jackson: tributes and reactions from Bernice King, Trump and Biden after civil rights leader’s death – latest updates
Follow
latest updates as public figures praise civil rights leader who was a
protege of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for Democratic
presidential nomination
Kamala Harris pays tribute to 'one of America's greatest patriots'
Former vice-president Kamala Harris has also paid tribute to Jesse Jackson, describing him as “one of America’s greatest patriots”.
“He spent his life summoning all of us to fulfil the promise of America and building the coalitions to make that promise real,” she wrote in a post on X, adding that he gave a voice to those who were “removed from power and politics”.
She continued:
He
let us know our voices mattered. He instilled in us that we were
somebody. And he widened the path for generations to follow in his
footsteps and lead. As a young law student, I would drive back and forth
from Oakland, where I lived, to San Francisco, where I went to school. I
had a bumper sticker in the back window of my car that read: “Jesse
Jackson for President.”
As I would drive across the Bay Bridge, you would not believe
how people from every walk of life would give me a thumbs up or honk of
support. They were small interactions, but they exemplified Reverend
Jackson’s life work – lifting up the dignity of working people, building
community and coalitions, and strengthening our democracy and nation.
I was proud to partner with and learn from him on this work
throughout my career, and I am so grateful for the time we spent
together this January. Reverend Jackson was a selfless leader, mentor,
and friend to me and so many others.
Kamala
Harris, who ran against Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race,
said Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988 “electrified millions
of Americans and showed them what could be possible”. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
The veteran civil rights activist Jesse Jackson,
who has died aged 84, made history when he stood for the White House in
1984 and 1988. He was not the first African American to seek the US
presidency, but he was the first to mount a serious challenge, breaking
through racial barriers, securing millions of votes and, at one point,
becoming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.
His
run opened the way for Barack Obama two decades later. But Jackson
deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote in Obama’s biography.
It took courage and self-confidence to stand in the 1980s, with memories
of segregation and the civil rights battles of the 60s still raw.
In
the middle of the 1984 presidential run, the writer James Baldwin
offered what today still stands as a fitting epitaph. The writer told
reporters that the presence of an African-American civil rights activist
in the race had been a significant moment.
Jackson’s
presence “presents the American Republic with questions and choices it
has spent all its history until this hour trying to avoid ... And
nothing will ever again be what it was before.” The quote came from
Marshall Frady’s sympathetic biography, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage
of Jesse Jackson, published in 1996.
“Jackson
was more than a civil rights advocate – he was a living bridge between
generations, carrying forward the unfinished work and sacred promise of
the Civil Rights Movement,” Martin Luther King III and his wife Andrea King said in a statement.
The pair added:
He
walked with courage when the road was uncertain, spoke with conviction
when the truth was inconvenient, and stood with the poor, the
marginalized, and the forgotten when it was not popular to do so.
His life was a testament to the power of faith in action – faith
that justice could be won, that dignity belongs to every person, and
that love must always have the final word.
May his memory be a wellspring of strength and courage for all who
continue the sacred work to which he gave his life. As he so often
reminded us: keep hope alive.
A statement on behalf of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chairman, Leon W Russell, vice-chair, Karen Boykin Towns and the organisation’s president, Derrick Johnson paid tribute to Jackson today.
It read:
Reverend
Jesse Jackson was not only a civil rights icon - he was family to the
NAACP. His work advanced black America at every turn. He challenged this
nation to live up to its highest ideals, and he reminded our movement
that hope is both a strategy and a responsibility.
His historic run for president inspired millions and brought race to the forefront of American politics.
We honor his legacy by continuing the work he championed: protecting
the right to vote, expanding economic opportunity, and fighting for the
freedom and dignity of black people everywhere.
The mayor of Atlanta said in a statement that he intends to keep Jackson’s hopes alive, as he paid tribute to the late civil rights activist.
“I join the people of Atlanta mourning the passing of an American icon,” mayor Andre Dickens said.
“Rev
Jackson showed up for us consistently. He never stopped challenging
leaders to do better by Americans, especially when it comes to economic
justice. And that’s a fight that we will continue.
“Here
in Atlanta, as well as around the country, we would be wise to heed
Rev. Jackson’s words and ‘keep hope alive.’ We intend to.”
Atlanta
mayor Andre Dickens attends the 2024 Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved
Community Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church on January
15, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images
Senator Elizabeth Warren said Jesse Jackson was a “trailblazer and a fighter” in an X post today.
She said:
I had the privilege of speaking with him about his vision for a fairer, more equal and just country.
He has given a generation of leaders hope that we can and should keep fighting for that vision.
He will be missed.
Reverend
Jesse Jackson, Elizabeth Warren, Ilhan Omar and Maxine Waters at the
Phoenix Awards Dinner, CBCF Annual Legislative Conference, Washington
DC, USA, 14 Sep 2019. Photograph: Earl Gibson III/REX/Shutterstock
Minority leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer has called Jesse Jackson an “icon” and “fearless warrior” for justice.
In a post on X, he said:
Jesse
Jackson was an icon of the civil rights movement and a fearless warrior
for justice for all people. He was one of the most powerful forces for
positive change in our country and our world. America is a more equal
and just place thanks to his work.
My prayers are with his family and all of those who were inspired by
him. As we honor Rev. Jackson in the coming days, I will be thinking of
the many lessons he taught us: “Never look down on anybody unless
you’re helping them up.” We should all seek to embody that spirit and
serve others the way Rev. Jackson did.
Keep hope—alive!
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
Jesse Jackson’s unapologetic progressivism was rebellion at its core
Saida Grundy
By
the early 1980s, the Democratic party was facing a crossroads. The 1980
landslide election of Ronald Reagan, who clenched the presidency with a
whopping 489 electoral college votes against Democratic incumbent Jimmy
Carter, swiftly pulled the Democratic party to the right in the
political and cultural wave of the “Reagan Revolution”.
For
those Democratic constituents left behind, however, a challenge was
mounting, mostly within US industrial cities whose economies were
ransacked by Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics. Record tax cuts for the
wealthy had come at the expense of a contracted social safety net, thus
exacerbating inequality and collapsing much of the working class into
the poor.
Grassroots resistance campaigns
spawned across the country in response to this dire urban crisis that
had disproportionately devastated African Americans, and between 1982
and 1984 they had registered 2 million new Black voters – the largest
gain in registered Black voters since the passage of the 1965 Voting
Rights Act.
These hands-on voter registration drives were orchestrated much in part by Rev Jesse Jackson,
the nationally known civil rights activist who died on Tuesday. Jackson
had cut his teeth as one of Martin Luther King Jr’s youngest and most
charismatic lieutenants in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) and throughout the civil rights movement.
By
the 1970s, in the wake of King’s assassination, Jackson had transferred
the movement’s master-classes in strategic organizing into founding
Operation Push, a populist leftist offshoot of the SCLC that coalesced
progressive whites, LGBTQ+ communities, environmentalists, Asian
Americans, Indigenous Nations, Latinos, anti-war activists, and labor
unions.
Jackson led discussions with
leadership across the country about the prospect for a national
Black-backed progressive movement that could map a viable path to a
Democratic nomination for president.
Biden: Jackson was 'determined and tenacious' in his belief in America’s promise
Former president Joe Biden has paid tribute to Jesse Jackson and said the civil rights activist was “determined and tenacious” in his belief in America’s promise.
He
said the late civil rights activist was a man of God, as well as a man
of the people and that he was “unafraid to work to redeem the soul of
our nation”.
In a statement on social media, Biden said:
I’ve
seen how Reverend Jackson has helped lead our Nation forward through
tumult and triumph. He’s done it with optimism, and a relentless
insistence on what is right and just. Whether through impassioned words
on the campaign trail, or moments of quiet courage, Reverend Jackson
influenced generations of Americans, and countless elected leaders,
including Presidents.
Reverend Jackson believed in his bones the promise of America: that
we are all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated
equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never fully lived up to that
promise, he dedicated his life to ensuring we never fully walked away
from it either.
Jill and I are grateful to Reverend Jackson for his lifetime of
dedicated service and inspirational leadership. We extend our love to
the entire Jackson family, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and all those who
counted Reverend Jackson as a mentor, friend, and hero.
Democratic
candidate for US president, former Vice President Joe Biden (L)
embraces Reverend Jesse Jackson (R) after speaking at the opening of the
Rainbow PUSH International Convention at the Chicago Teachers Union
headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, USA, 28 June 2019. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA
Chairman of the Democrats Ken Martin described Jesse Jackson as “a tireless champion for justice, equality, and human dignity”.
In a post on X, he said:
We mourn the passing of civil rights legend Jesse Jackson, a tireless champion for justice, equality, and human dignity.
Rev. Jackson’s lifelong fight for civil rights helped shape a more
just America, and his historic 1988 campaign for President broke
barriers and inspired millions.
Kamala Harris pays tribute to 'one of America's greatest patriots'
Former vice-president Kamala Harris has also paid tribute to Jesse Jackson, describing him as “one of America’s greatest patriots”.
“He spent his life summoning all of us to fulfil the promise of America and building the coalitions to make that promise real,” she wrote in a post on X, adding that he gave a voice to those who were “removed from power and politics”.
She continued:
He
let us know our voices mattered. He instilled in us that we were
somebody. And he widened the path for generations to follow in his
footsteps and lead. As a young law student, I would drive back and forth
from Oakland, where I lived, to San Francisco, where I went to school. I
had a bumper sticker in the back window of my car that read: “Jesse
Jackson for President.”
As I would drive across the Bay Bridge, you would not believe
how people from every walk of life would give me a thumbs up or honk of
support. They were small interactions, but they exemplified Reverend
Jackson’s life work – lifting up the dignity of working people, building
community and coalitions, and strengthening our democracy and nation.
I was proud to partner with and learn from him on this work
throughout my career, and I am so grateful for the time we spent
together this January. Reverend Jackson was a selfless leader, mentor,
and friend to me and so many others.
Kamala
Harris, who ran against Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race,
said Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988 “electrified millions
of Americans and showed them what could be possible”. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
[Verse 1] I was dreaming in my dreaming Of an aspect bright and fair And my sleeping, it was broken But my dream, it lingered near In the form of shining valleys Where the pure air recognized And my senses newly opened I awakened to the cry
[Pre-Chorus] That the people have the power To redeem the work of fools Upon the meek the graces shower It's decreed: the people rule
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Verse 2] Vengeful aspect became suspect And bending low as if to hear And the armies ceased advancing Because the people had their ear And the shepherds and the soldiers Lay beneath the stars Exchanging visions and laying arms To waste in the dust
[Pre-Chorus] In the form of shining valleys Where the pure air recognized And my senses newly opened I awakened to the cry
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Verse 3] Where there were deserts I saw fountains Like cream the waters rise And we strolled there together With none to laugh or criticize And the leopard and the lamb Lay together truly bound I was hoping in my hoping To recall what I had found
[Pre-Chorus] I was dreaming in my dreaming God knows a purer view As I lay down to my sleeping I commit my dream to you
[Chorus] People have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Bridge] The power to dream, to rule To wrestle the world from fools It's decreed: the people rule It's decreed: the people rule Listen. I believe everything we dream Can come to pass through our union We can turn the world around We can turn the earth's revolution
[Chorus] We have the power People have the power People have the power People have the power
[Outro] The power to dream, to rule To wrestle the world from fools It's decreed: the people rule It's decreed: the people rule We have the power We have the power The people have the power We have the power
The criminalizing of protest and dissent has a long history in America
Trump administration is accusing protesters of ‘domestic terrorism’ but this brazen tactic is as old as the country itself
When federal immigration agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on 23 January, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, wasted no time claiming
to the press, without credible evidence, that Pretti had been engaged
in “domestic terrorism”. Though the administration seems to be trying to
soften that initial response after fierce backlash, it’s an accusation that members of the Trump administration have been leveling
at wide swaths of people beyond Pretti – including Renee Nicole Good,
another Minnesotan killed by ICE agents two and a half weeks prior, and Marimar Martinez, who survived being shot by ICE agents in Chicago in October – as part of an ongoing strategy to criminalize dissent.
It’s
a claim Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents themselves
have started to make directly in confrontations with citizens, seemingly
to try and intimidate legal observers, sometimes known as ICE watchers.
In one recent video
from Portland, Maine, an ICE officer told an observer to stop recording
him on her phone, and when she wouldn’t, he took her information down
and said, “We have a nice little database … and now you’re considered a
domestic terrorist.”
A common pattern has also
emerged in courts: ICE or other federal agents will initiate a violent
confrontation with a protester – pushing a 70-year-old veteran to the ground in Chicago outside the Broadway ICE facility, or shoving
a US citizen at a protest in LA – then, the Department of Justice will
press charges against the victim of that violence, rather than against
the perpetrator. By one count,
more than a hundred prosecutions relying on Section 111 of Title 18 of
the US code, which deals with resisting federal employees, were filed in
the second half of 2025.
Protesters clash with police during a ‘national shutdown’ protest against ICE in Los Angeles on 30 January 2026. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
“It
absolutely seems to be the case that federal agents have ramped up
their repression of legal observers,” said Michelle Phelps, a sociology
professor at the University of Minnesota and author of The Minneapolis
Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America.
Though
the hasty labeling of anyone who records or protests ICE a “domestic
terrorist” has become particularly brazen under the second Trump administration, the criminalization of protest and dissent in the US is nothing new – in fact, it’s as old as the country itself.
The history of criminalizing protest
Anti-protest bills proliferated
around the country under both the Trump and Biden administrations,
aimed at everything from expanding the definition of what counts as a
“riot” to penalizing anyone who obstructs the flow of car traffic.
Twenty-nine state and federal anti-protest bills passed during Trump’s
first term and 25 passed under Biden.
According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), which has been operating a protest law tracker
since January 2017, when Trump first took office, “these anti-protest
bills are often introduced in response to prominent protest movements.”
That’s likely why the number of proposed anti-protest bills jumped so
high in 2021 (90 total bills proposed, though only 12 passed), the year
after protests sprung up across the nation in the wake of George Floyd’s
murder by a Minneapolis cop.
Other protest
bills have emerged in response to other movements. In 2019, in the wake
of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and the ramping up of climate
protests, US states began to introduce extreme penalties (like five
years in prison, in the case of one Louisiana law) for interfering with
pipeline construction or trespassing nearby. In 2025, a host of bills
targeting student protesters and universities cropped up as a response to pro-Palestinian student encampments.
Other
bills have seemed intent on making protest of any kind more dangerous
to participants: an Iowa law passed in 2021 protects drivers who hit or
kill protesters from liability, while a Florida law passed the same year
protects people who injure or kill protesters from being sued, so long
as the protester was participating in a “riot”. (What constitutes a
“riot”, though, varies by state and in some places is defined in such a
way that it can include “peaceful protesters who are simply part of a
larger crowd where a few individuals engage in property destruction–even
something as minor as kicking over a trash can”, said the ICNL.)
Demonstrators
attend an ‘ICE Out’ protest, after the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole
Good and Alex Pretti by US federal agents, in Minneapolis, on 30
January. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters
According
to Gloria J Browne-Marshall, a professor of constitutional law at John
Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and author of A Protest History
of the United States, criminalization and violence against protestors
has been “part and parcel” of this country for a long time. During the
civil rights movement, for example, leaders were surveilled by the
government and frequently jailed. If people see this moment as totally
unprecedented, it might be because of the demographic being visibly
impacted.
“What had been happening to
immigrants and to African Americans… is now happening across the board
to middle-class white people,” she said.
‘A war on solidarity’
According
to Nick Estes, a historian at the University of Minnesota and enrolled
member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, who has written and co-edited
multiple books on the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access
Pipeline, the shooting and killing of white people on the streets of
Minneapolis is “a war on solidarity”. “White supremacy is meant to
control white people first and foremost,” he said. “So if they’re not
complying with the status quo, and they’re trying to defend immigrant
neighbors, I see this as retaliation [against them for that].”
He pointed to Jessica Reznicek, a Catholic worker and climate activist who was sentenced
to eight years in prison, fined $3m, and labeled a domestic terrorist
in 2021 for damaging the Dakota Access Pipeline using a pipe welder (no
people were harmed). Meanwhile, “no January 6 protester got terrorism
enhancement charges or sentencing”, Estes said, despite multiple fatalities
resulting from the attack on the Capitol. “I think that largely has to
do with the fact that [Reznicek] was in alliance with Indigenous water
protectors.”
Regardless of who is being
targeted, the criminalization of protest – and a belief in the
importance of protest – have been present since the country’s founding,
according to Browne-Marshall.
On the one hand,
the Insurrection Act was “created to prevent people from protesting”;
on the other, “the framers of the US constitution were very much afraid
of the power of the government they had created,” she said. “There was
always this fear of a charismatic leader who would somehow meld together
these three branches of government that were supposed to be counters to
one another – and that’s what we have right now.”
The
goal of all this criminalization seems to be to further consolidate
power and protect the Trump administration against dissent, she added.
The
White House did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about what
criteria is being used to designate someone a “domestic terrorist”, nor
why that label is being applied by the White House before evidence has
been presented or considered in a court of law. Instead, Abigail
Jackson, White House spokesperson, fully defended ICE agents, saying:
“ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American
communities and local officials should work with them, not against them.
Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the
criminals is simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens.”
Neither ICE nor the Department of Justice responded to the Guardian’s
questions or requests for comment.
Insofar as
criminalization is meant to scare people, it’s working to a degree,
according to ACLU Minnesota organizer Paul Sullivan. Immigrants in the
Twin Cities are increasingly staying indoors, relying on mutual aid
efforts for food and other necessities, and many people of color, even
if they’re citizens, are shrinking from public life as they look to
avoid being racially profiled by ICE officers.
“But
it’s also, frankly, had the opposite effect that I imagine that ICE and
the Trump administration intended, which is that it has really, really
activated and enraged a lot of our community,” Sullivan said. They
described stories of ICE officers pulling up across from a cafe and 90%
of the people inside coming out to shout at them and blow whistles.
“It’s really become something that the community has coalesced around,
and that is that determination to oppose the regime for what they’re
doing,” Sullivan said.
It’s not just Minnesota
– in Chicago, posters declaring that ICE isn’t welcome have become
nearly ubiquitous in many neighborhoods. In Oregon, protesters are
doubling down on their right to protest and bringing gas masks to help
them weather pepper spray and other attacks from federal agents.
Though the risks are high, continuing to show up is important, said Sullivan.
That
can and is taking many different forms in cities that are being
targeted, including delivering meals and covering rent for immigrants
who are sheltering in place to avoid ICE, continuing to blow whistles
and alert neighbors when ICE is spotted nearby, filming their
activities, and pressuring local elected officials to push back against
this federal overreach.
Browne-Marshall
suggests that today’s organizers study the strategies of their forebears
in the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movements to learn what works,
including tactics like pressuring corporations to stop cooperating with
federal agents. In the longer term, Sullivan notes that it will be
important to fight the securitization that the US government has been
ramping up since 9/11 under the banner of anti-terrorism that allows for
such easy and widespread surveillance of US citizens and everyone who
sets foot in the country. Many others are calling for the US to abolish ICE.
Whatever
the solution, one thing should be clear, said Estes: the law may be
twisted such that the government can deem anyone it wants to punish – or
even kill with impunity – a “domestic terrorist”.
But
law and order are “actually supposed to be a reflection of the values
of society”, he said. “What we’re seeing on the ground is people who are
saying ‘this is not what we want; this is not something we agreed to;
this is not something we asked for.’ To me, that shows that human
solidarity is triumphing in the face of this really violent moment we’re
living through.”
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