Many in America watched the parade of luminaries give speeches at the Friday memorial service for the late, iconic civil rights leader and activist, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. Jackson Sr. died on February 17, 2026 after a long battle with progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 84.
Not everybody enjoyed the tributes speeches, though. According to reports from TMZ and the New York Post, on Saturday, while speaking at the Chicago headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Jesse Jackson Jr. slammed former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, in particular, for using the funeral service to take shots at President Trump (who was not in attendance).
“Yesterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson,” said Jackson Jr. “He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these — those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people. And it speaks volumes about who the Rev. Jesse Jackson was.”
While each of the former presidents who spoke—Obama, Biden and Clinton—did know Jackson Sr., Jackson Jr. was presumably alleging that they didn’t really know the man who was Jesse Jackson Sr. Obama famously had a tense relationship with Jackson Sr., especially around Obama’s presidential run and eventual presidency. At one point, Jackson Sr. was caught on a hot mic in reference to Obama, saying he wanted to “cut his nuts off” for speaking down to Black people. The two would eventually work out their differences, at least publicly.
At the service, both Obama and Biden (as did former Biden Vice President, Kamala Harris) took shots at President Trump in their eulogies. Obama lamented the attack on Democratic institutions and added, “Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength. It’s hard to hope in those moments.” Biden alleged that the Trump administration didn’t have any moral standing.
Clinton didn’t speak to politics, but chose to speak warmly of a man he called a long-time friend. Jackson played a prominent role in the Clinton administration. Jackson Sr. received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Clinton in 2000.
