Can the dis-United States keep Jesse's hope alive?

WHEN Jesse Jackson died last week, America did not simply lose a veteran of the civil rights movement, it lost a living bridge between its most turbulent chapters.

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN ON EVENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

I was reminded of that in 2015, when I saw him arrive in Charleston, South Carolina, days after the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church.

Nine black worshippers had been shot dead during Bible study. The city was paralysed by grief. The weight of history hung in the air.

Jackson walked slowly. Age had taken some of the physical force from the man once known for sweeping gestures and rolling, preacherly thunder.

His voice was softer than it had been in the 1980s, when he could bring party conventions to their feet. But the message had not faded. If anything, it had grown more distilled.

He did not speak only of mourning. He spoke of solidarity. He framed the atrocity not as a lone act of madness but as part of a deeper American struggle between inclusion and exclusion. Even in that moment of horror, his instinct was to widen the circle. That was the thread running through his life.