This is CNN breaking news.
Good morning to you.
I'm Pamela Brown and for Audi Cornish and we start this hour with the breaking news civil rights icon,
the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
whose towering presence and vision reshaped the Democratic Party and the country has died at the age of 84.
His family posted this statement on Instagram.
Our father was a servant leader, not only to our family,
but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.
We ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.
CNN's Abby Phillip has a look at Jesse Jackson's life and legacy.
Jesse Jackson's life was defined by a relentless fight for justice and equality.
I was born in Greenville, South Carolina.
In rampant radical racial segregation,
had to be taught to go to the back of the bus and be arrested.
Those early experiences drove Jackson to join the civil rights movement.
The fact is against the odds.
We knew they were great odds.
We were winning.
In 1965, he began working for Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
I learned so much from him.