Reverend Jesse Jackson Shares Parkinson’s Diagnosis

By Matthew Grady 11/17/17

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, longtime civil rights activist, Baptist Preacher, and politician said today that he has Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s causes the loss of neurons in the body and can result in symptoms such as tremors, slowness of movement, and stiffness. It is an incurable disease.

The disease is no stranger to Jackson. “[Parkinson’s was] a disease that bested my father,” Jackson said. Having a close relative with Parkinson’s has been proven to increase the chance that one will develop the disease.

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Jackson was a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, and after winning millions of votes in both his 1984 and 1988 campaigns, he became the first viable African-American candidate for President of the United States.

His devotion to the civil rights began early. When Jackson was in college, he joined the Congress of Racial Equality and took part in marches and sit-ins. In 1968, he worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. and was at his side the day King was assassinated.

Jackson said of this new challenge: “[The] recognition of the effects of this disease on me has been painful.”

As Parkinson’s slowly strips away motor skills, those with it can sometimes lose the ability to make facial expressions and in some cases, speech is completely lost.

Jackson said,“that I must make lifestyle changes and dedicate myself to physical therapy in hopes of slowing the disease’s progression.”  Those diagnosed with the disease can slow its effects by exercise, dieting, and taking medication.

Boxing champ Muhammad Ali suffered from Parkinson’s disease for thirty years until his death last year.