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July 14 (UPI) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson will retire from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, eight years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, according to a spokesperson for the organization. "Reverend Jesse Jackson is officially pivoting from his role as president of Rainbow PUSH Coalition. His commitment is unwavering, and he will elevate his life's work in teaching ministers how to fight for social justice," a Rainbow PUSH Coalition spokesperson said.
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The Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH group is a social-justice nonprofit organization formed by several other groups founded by Jackson over the years -- Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition.
A spokesperson said Jackson's "global impact and civil rights career will be celebrated this weekend at the 57th annual Rainbow PUSH Coalition convention, where his successor will be named and introduced."
Jackson, 81, has been a leader in the civil rights movement since the 1960s. He worked with Dr. Martin Luther King as a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Council.
He also was a witness to King's assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
After King's death, Jackson struggled to work with some of the civil rights leaders who succeeded him in the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Council and broke off to found Operation PUSH in 1971.
In 1984, Jackson founded the Rainbow Coalition and eventually merged the two organizations into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Jackson has also been a critical player in Democratic politics, running for the party's presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.
"The resignation of Rev. Jesse Jackson is the pivoting of one of the most productive, prophetic, and dominant figures in the struggle for social justice in American history. It was my honor, since my mother brought me to him at 12 years old to serve as the youth director for the New York chapter of Operation Breadbasket, down through the last decade," the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network.
On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris will speak at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition yearly convention in Chicago, Ill., during which Jackson will announce his successor.
