From former presidents to an NBA Hall of Famer to prominent church pastors, stories of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.'s influence on politics, corporate boardrooms and picket lines loomed large at a celebration honoring the late civil rights leader. Thousands of people gathered Friday at a church on Chicago's South Side to pay a final public tribute to Jackson. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were in attendance. The ceremony honors Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate. It follows memorial services that drew large crowds in Chicago and South Carolina, where Jackson was born.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is returning to South Carolina for a final public farewell. Jackson will lie in state at the Capitol in Columbia on Monday. The tribute contrasts with his childhood in segregated Greenville. In 1960, Jackson led Black students into a whites-only library to read until police arrested them. That protest started his civil rights career. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina says he could never have served 33 years in Congress without Jackson's civil rights work. Jackson died on Feb. 17 at age 84 in Chicago.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson's family says that the civil rights leader has been released from a hospital where he was treated for a rare neurological disorder. Yusef Jackson said Tuesday that his father was discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The 84-year-old Jackson is an internationally known civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2013. That diagnosis was changed last spring to progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP. While hospitalized, Jackson's visitors included former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yusef Jackson thanked friends and supporters who are praying for the Rev. Jackson.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is in the hospital with a rare neurological disorder. Jackson's Chicago-based civil rights organization says the 84-year-old has progressive supranuclear palsy and is under observation. Jackson has suffered from symptoms consistent with Parkinson's disease and disclosed a diagnosis in 2017. But during a Mayo Clinic visit in April, doctors confirmed a diagnosis of PSP, which can have similar symptoms to Parkinson's. He has continued to make public appearances including at last year's Democratic National Convention. He's been using a wheelchair and family members say he can no longer speak.

The voters in early presidential nominating states are used to seeing contenders months or even years before most of the country. But the political jockeying in 2025 for the 2028 presidential contest appears to be playing out earlier, with more frequency and with less pretense than ever before. While the first presidential primary votes won't be cast for another two and a half years, three Democratic presidential prospects are scheduled to campaign in South Carolina for 10 days this month. Nearly a half dozen others have made recent pilgrimages to South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa. This week, both Kentucy Gov. Andy Beshear and Rep. Ro Khanna will be in South Carolina.