The Rev. Jesse Jackson had some of his longtime supporters worried after recent images of the 82-year-old Baptist minister drew concerned reactions online.
His protégé, Al Sharpton, posted photos and videos of the Rainbow/PUSH founder on social media, showing Jackson in a frail state as he sat in a wheelchair.
The former presidential candidates were photographed while attending the funeral of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Aug. 1. Music legend Stevie Wonder and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, who were also in attendance for the memorial service in Houston. Waters can be seen holding Jackson’s hand, as he appeared to be looking lost.
“It breaks my heart to see Jesse. My aunt is the sa.e way. So sad,” one person wrote on X, in the under Sharpton’s post. Another said, “Brother Jesse is going down so fast wow. Bless him.”
A third said, “Rev Jesse Jackson gotten up in age and he had a long and hard fight in life.”
Other people had alarming questions, in response to Al Sharpton’s video of Jackson shared on X, one person on the app asked, “What’s wrong with Jesse Jackson?”
Someone responded by saying the civil rights activist has Parkinson’s disease. Another X user tweeted, “My God! What is it with this Parkinson’s, smh!”
Some people left harsh comments about Jackson under Sharpton’s posts. For example, a troll wrote, “Jesse looks like a wax figure.”
According to ABC7, Jackson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017 and spent several weeks at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab to receive treatment for his symptoms in 2022.
“I came in here in a wheelchair and I’m leaving here walking on my own power,” Jackson said at the time of his physical, occupational, and speech therapy.
While the clip of Jackson remains on Sharpton’s Twitter timeline, the negative reactions to Jackson’s appearance may have caused Sharpton to erase the video from another social media platform.
Apparently, the National Action Network founder also posted the video of Jackson at Sheila Jackson Lee’s memorial service on his Instagram page before deleting it.
Longtime Sharpton adviser Rachel Holly Noerdlinger also turned off the comments on her Instagram post about Jackson meeting with Sharpton, Stevie Wonder, and Waters.
While some social media users focused on how Jackson looked, his fans celebrated the close colleague of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their Instagram replies.
“Man it’s crazy seeing them all at this age but it’s truly remarkable to see what they contributed to our culture and how they are still making it through. They are truly icons!” a supporter proclaimed.
“God bless Jessie! He would have made a great president. The world wasn’t ready for him unfortunately,” wrote an Instagram user, reflecting on Jackson’s two presidential runs.
Jackson first ran to be president of the United States in 1984 as a Democrat. He launched a second unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1988.
Sharpton sought elected office on multiple occasions on the local and federal levels. The MSNBC political analyst came up short in the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
