CHICAGO (AP) — Three former Democratic presidents are set to speak at a Chicago church as mourners pay a final public tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden received cheers and applause Friday as they joined thousands of people for a celebration of life for the civil rights leader. But it was “the South Side’s own, President Barack Obama,” as an announcer described him, who received the loudest round of applause as he entered the chamber.
Obama, Clinton and Biden followed the arrival of Jackson's family into the church sanctuary.
Former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is also listed as a speaker on the program, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organization that Jackson founded.
President Donald Trump, who praised Jackson on social media after he died and also shared photos of the two of them together, was not attending the service, according to his public schedule issued by the White House.
Thousands attend Jackson memorial service
The event honors the protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate and follows memorial services that drew large crowds in Chicago and South Carolina, where Jackson was born. Friday’s celebration — at an influential Black church with a 10,000-seat arena — is expected to be the largest.
Crowds of attendees waited in long lines outside the church on the city’s South Side as television screens played excerpts of some of Jackson’s most famous speeches. Inside, vendors sold pins with his 1984 presidential slogan and hoodies with his “I Am Somebody” mantra.
A prerecorded video address of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared on auditorium screens as attendees continued to file into the chamber.
Sanders praised Jackson’s dual presidential bids as an “unprecedented” effort to bridge divides along race and class. The Vermont progressive, who twice mounted unsuccessful bids for the Democratic presidential nomination, praised Jackson for inspiring “enthusiasm” across racial and age divides.
Source: WPLG
