Peter Applebome, The New York Times (gift link):

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died on Tuesday at his home in Chicago. He was 84.

I recall friends and family talking excitedly about Jesse Jackson’s two presidential runs in 1984 and 1988; there was this palpable sense of possibility, tempered though it was by political reality—everyone then knew that a Black man could never become president of the United States, not in their lifetime.

In 2014 and 2015, Rev. Jackson forcefully called out Silicon Valley tech companies for their ongoing lack of diversity. His efforts drove intense conversations inside Apple, drawing attention to the work many of us were doing to improve Apple’s diversity practices. The result was greater visibility for our recruiting and community efforts and led—indirectly, at least—to the release of Apple’s first diversity report. Jackson’s voice amplified ours at a time when few were willing to listen to us.

We Keep Hope Alive.