The rare qualities that distinguished the Rev. Jesse Jackson — his fortitude as a civil rights leader, and the love he shared as a mentor, a friend and father — were praised time and again on Friday, as his family and a roster of luminaries, including three former U.S. presidents, gathered for Jackson's funeral service on Chicago's South Side.
Repeatedly, it came down to three words that Jackson made famous.
"I am! Somebody!" the crowd chanted in the House of Hope megachurch, repeating Jackson's belief that every person matters, no matter their race or economic standing.
"He paved the road," former President Barack Obama said. He noted that Jackson brought social change, and also proved, in the 1980s, that a Black presidential candidate could be taken seriously.
"His voice called on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, 'Send me,'" Obama said. "Wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it's in our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our cities."
Jackson's son, Yusef, gave vivid detail to Jackson's commitment to helping those who need it most.
"I intend to die with my shoes on," Yusef Jackson said, quoting his father's refusal to let health problems stop him from aspiring to help people in war-torn Ukraine, and Americans struggling with food insecurity. Along the way, Yusef Jackson said, his father also managed to find time to share his love for his children and grandchildren.
"Keep hope alive," Yusef Jackson said in closing, echoing another of Jesse Jackson's mottos.
Speakers emphasized Jackson's message of hope throughout the service, especially as some referenced the Trump administration.
Obama said "it's hard to hope" when "every day you wake up to things you just didn't think were possible. Each day we're told ... to fear each other, to turn on each other and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don't even count at all."
Former presidential candidate Kamala Harris said she predicted how President Trump's second term would play out.
"I'm not into saying 'I told you so,' but we did see it coming," Harris said. "But what I did not predict is that we would not have Jesse Jackson with us to get through this."
Several speakers credited Jackson for sowing the seeds that would carry them through storied careers.
For Judge Greg Mathis, from the hit daytime television show Judge Mathis, hearing Jackson say "I am somebody" began a domino effect that would catapult him to success in the worlds of law and entertainment.
"Those were the three words that I heard 50 years ago this month that changed my life forever," Mathis said.
He first met Jackson when he was a teenager incarcerated in Detroit. Jackson had stopped at the facility where Mathis was being held during a speaking tour. Mathis wanted to join Jackson's cause right then and there. But it wouldn't happen that fast. Jackson told Mathis to go to college first.
After graduating, Mathis worked on Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, and was later elected to a judgeship in Detroit. Years later, he reunited with Jackson to serve as vice president of Jackson's nonprofit, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Then, Mathis got the offer to be on television.
"'Oh yeah, you gotta take this,'" Mathis said, recalling Jackson's reaction. "'But primarily, I want you to take this so that you can spread a message of hope to millions and millions of people who you will inspire to overcome their obstacles, as we've overcome ours.'"
Obama reminisced about being a college student while watching Jackson's first presidential debate.
"When that debate was over, I turned off that TV, and I thought the same thing that I know a lot of people thought, even if they didn't want to admit it. That in his idea, and his platform, in his analysis, in his intelligence, in his insight, Jesse hadn't just held his own. He had owned that stage," Obama said.
He continued, "And the message he sent to a 22-year-old child of a single mother with a funny name, an outsider, was that there wasn't any place, any room, where we didn't belong."
One of the most emotional speeches came from NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, a longtime friend of Jackson's who recalled meeting the civil rights leader when Thomas was a child in Chicago. In those days, Thomas said, his family was living in poverty, relying on a soup line for sustenance.
That's when, Thomas said, he and his mother encountered Jackson walking down a street.
When Jackson saw the boy, he bent down and looked Thomas in the eye.
"When society was telling me I was a nobody, when society was telling me we don't even want to go to school with you," Thomas said, Jackson shared a different message.
"You are somebody," Jackson told Thomas.
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