Jackson worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was present at his assassination in 1968.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, America’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.

"Our father was a servant leader -- not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless and the overlooked around the world," the Jackson family said in a statement.

Legendary civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson has died, three months after he was hospitalised with a rare brain disease.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the fiery civil rights leader and gifted orator, died on Tuesday at the age of 84.

Although the party’s nomination eluded him, he received millions of votes in his 1984 and 1988 candidacies, which he used to promote social justice and economic empowerment for the poor.