(February 21, 2026) – When The Rev. Jesse Jackson died Tuesday (Feb. 17) at age 84 – I realized that that number represented one of time’s most poetic ironies. That’s because 84 didn’t merely mark his life line, it pointed me directly back to 1984, the year that crystallized his biggest impact and, in many ways, shaped — and previewed — what America (and I) would eventually become.
1984: The Year Possible Became Plausible
While Orwell’s dystopian fears about ‘84 defined popular imagination, a very different reality was emerging in Black America — in politics, sports, and entertainment. In politics, Jesse Jackson did what many considered unthinkable. He ran for president of the United States – not the first Black man to do so – but the first with a plausible chance of winning a major party nomination. He garnered 3.5 million votes in the 1984 Democratic primaries — roughly one in every five cast — and would nearly double that total four years later.
That 1984 triumph was a midpoint occurring 16 years after Jackson was with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when the latter was assassinated in 1968, and 16 years before Jackson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 by then-president Bill Clinton. Arguably, Jackson was the most important Black leader in politics — and certainly the most visible — in the 32 years between those two historical moments – a man whose torch was symbolically passed in ‘00 as many younger leaders emerged at the dawn of the new millennium.
1984: Black Excellence on Every Stage
But 1984 also carried significant historical weight for the strides that Black people were making in entertainment and sports. As Jackson and his National Rainbow Coalition campaigned around the country in his attempt to become the first Black president, Michael Jordan – arguably the greatest NBA player in history – made his transition from college to the pros, where he’d eventually make history as a six-time NBA champ.
Carl Lewis, the world’s most dominant track star at the time, won gold medals in four different Olympic events that year – the 100 m and 200 m dashes, the 4 x100m relay, and the long jump. A little-remembered fact: Lewis was drafted by both the Chicago Bulls (in the same draft class as Jordan) and the Dallas Cowboys that same year — despite not playing either sport in college — a testament to how visibly dominant Black athletic excellence had become.
Lewis appeared on the cover of Time twice in 1984. Including Jesse Jackson and Michael Jackson, that meant three Black men graced the cover that year — an extraordinary trilogy in a decade that had featured only one such prior appearance — Jesse’s in 1983 on the cusp of his historic election campaign.
When Entertainment Finally Recognized
Indeed 1984 was a year like none before, with Michael Jackson ruling the charts with his blockbuster Thriller album, which held the top spot on the Billboard 200 well into the spring of 1984 after having dominated 1983’s lists. The King of Pop also made history that year by winning eight Grammy awards (after being nominated for a record 12).
Just months later, Prince would close out the year the way Michael began it, dominating the Billboard 200 for the year’s final five months (en route to 24 total weeks at No. 1). Along the way, Prince became the first Black musician to own a No. 1 movie, album, and single simultaneously with Purple Rain, its soundtrack, and “When Doves Cry” each topping their respective lists that summer.
In hip-hop, still a fledgling genre more than a decade after its beginning, Black music promoter and entrepreneur Russell Simmons co-founded Def Jam Records with Rick Rubin, and launched the careers of future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys, both of whom recorded their first singles in 1984, and later Public Enemy. Simmons had been instrumental in the creation of his younger brother Joseph’s group Run-DMC, the Rock Hall of Famers whose debut album was released in ‘84 and featured the first hip-hop video — for the single “Rock Box” — to receive regular play on MTV.
In television, the most successful sitcom to feature a Black family — The Cosby Show — made its debut in September 1984. It would go on to become the first of its kind to regularly top Nielsen ratings, but more importantly, it presented a view of the Black family that countered prevailing stereotypes.
Those victories – coupled with Rev. Jackson’s political strides – made 1984 somewhat of a cultural supernova for Black achievement. Black excellence was no longer asking permission for recognition. It was demanding its presence be felt, in ways that had been denied for far too long.
My 1984
It was fitting then that 1984 also intersected with me personally. It was the year I became eligible to vote. It was the year politics stopped being theoretical and started being participatory. It was also the year I’d graduated from high school and entered college, which introduced me to the brotherhood I would later join – Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. – the same fraternity to which Rev. Jackson belonged and which no doubt honed his leadership philosophy and commitment to Omega’s four cardinal principles – manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift.
When you’re 18 — as I was in ’84 — you don’t always realize you’re standing at the intersection of history. It creeps up on you in real time and you’re only beginning to realize that these moments were bigger than you. To some degree, it was the same euphoria many felt when the country finally realized Rev. Jackson’s goal by electing Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president in 2008.
By then, Jackson had long since passed the torch on to younger Black leaders. His status was now that of emeritus. But he lived to see a dream made possible by his 1984 campaign, when America was just conceiving that a Black man could lead this country.
From 1984 to 84
The number 84 doesn’t signify destiny. But in Jesse Jackson’s case, it framed it. Yet Jackson’s passing at 84 years old isn’t so mystical as it is poetic. The weight of history only punctuates what that number means in both his life — and to a lesser degree my own — and his death. It creates a symmetry that allows us to review the significant strides that he and others made in a year I reached adulthood. And while the symmetry may be coincidental, the progress was not accidental.
Jackson and the others discussed above were on a deliberate mission in ‘84. He and they brought those immortal words, “I Am Somebody” to light.
And in doing so, millions of us believed we were, too!
R.I.P. Rev. Jesse Jackson (October 8, 1941 – February 17, 2026)
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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