![\"Guests,](\"https:\/\/people.com\/thmb\/sFySjIlF_b6KlTtBLT420sIzIUo=\/1500x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)\/Jesse-Jackson-Funeral-030626-06feef5a7c0548d7ad80d44f890840ae.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe three living Democratic presidents \u2014\u00a0Bill Clinton,\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0\u2014 attended the funeral of the late\u00a0Rev. Jesse Jackson\u00a0at the House of Hope in Chicago, Ill., on Friday, March 6.<\/p>\n
While Clinton and Biden were joined by their respective wives, former Secretary of State\u00a0Hillary Clinton\u00a0and\u00a0Dr. Jill Biden, Obama attended solo, without wife\u00a0Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n
The former presidents received a special shout-out as they entered the arena for the memorial service.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut your hands together for the three presidents: President Bill Clinton, President Joe Biden, and the Southside\u2019s own, President Barack Obama,\u201d the speaker announced.<\/p>\n
![\"Guests,](\"https:\/\/people.com\/thmb\/syxCgqy7GeAGaVUdTxstWmma-zM=\/4000x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)\/Jesse-Jackson-Funeral-030626-1-fe7f22362ceb409ea5c5b62468d5f1d3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker also spoke at the memorial, commemorating the life and legacy of the civil rights leader. Jackson died at age 84 on Feb. 17.<\/p>\n
In a\u00a0social media statement\u00a0at the time, the Baptist minister\u2019s loved ones said he died \u201cpeacefully\u201d while \u201csurrounded by family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur father was a servant leader \u2014 not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,\u201d the Jackson family said. \u201cWe shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Obama](\"https:\/\/d2r3ijz46v2k0u.cloudfront.net\/db8a03b3-2f40-4efa-ad6e-f29da9df456a.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
In November 2025, Jackson\u2019s civil rights organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, announced that he had been admitted into the hospital and was undergoing observation for his\u00a0progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disease that causes an individual to have issues with balance, swallowing, walking and eye movements, according to the\u00a0Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n
For his lifelong advocacy and civil rights activism, Jackson was awarded the nation\u2019s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Clinton in 2000.<\/p>\n
![\"Michelle](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2026\/03\/06\/22\/32\/SEI288175434.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for<\/strong>\u00a0PEOPLE\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/strong>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Michelle Obama faced scrutiny last year for skipping several public events traditionally attended by former presidents and first ladies.<\/p>\n After skipping both the\u00a0funeral of former President Jimmy Carter\u00a0and\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s second inauguration, the former first lady addressed her absences on an episode of her\u00a0IMO\u00a0<\/em>podcast, saying, \u201cIt took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n She added that making her own decisions about which events to attend was part of her new efforts to practice the \u201cart of saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a muscle that you have to build,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd I think we suffered, because it\u2019s almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clintons, Bidens, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, Minus Michelle, Attend Jesse Jackson\u2019s Funeral The three living Democratic presidents \u2014\u00a0Bill Clinton,\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0\u2014 attended the funeral of the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8485,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483\/revisions\/8485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}