Former presidential candidate and Civil Rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson was recently hospitalized and is now breathing without the help of machines, his family says.
Jackson was admitted to the hospital last week for “observation of a neurodegenerative condition with which he was diagnosed earlier this year,” per CBS News. Initial reports said that Jackson had been put on life support, but his family said on Sunday that the Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder is now stabilized and breathing on his own without machine assistance.
“In fact, today he called for 2,000 churches to prepare 2,000 baskets of food to prevent malnutrition during the holiday season,” said his son, Yusef Jackson.
The family added that Jackson, 84, will remain under the care of doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago as they monitor his “progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP, a neurological disorder,” which he was diagnosed with in April, per CNN:
The disease typically begins in a person’s 60s and has some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, it adds. Most people with PSP develop severe disability within three to five years.
Jackson “has been managing this neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade,” the organization previously said in a statement. “He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; however, last April his PSP condition was confirmed.”
Friends and family will also be flying into Chicago over the next few days to be at his side.
Jackson founded Operation PUSH in 1971 as an initiative for the advancement of black communities in the United States and later launched the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984. The two organizations merged in the 1990s to become the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. He also popularized the slogan “Keep Hope Alive,” which became central to his unsuccessful run for president in 1988.
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