Latrice Littleton, Creative Writer, Environmentalist, and Founder at Ardor Bin, said President Trump’s condolences for Jesse Jackson sparked controversy for noting his past support, noting that many people have ignored or acted as if his assistance and friendship never happened.
Littleton made the remarks following the death of a civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and two-time Democratic presidential candidate. Jackson died Feb. 17 at age 84 at his home in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. No cause of death was immediately reported, according to NBC News. Jackson had been living with progressive supranuclear palsy and revealed in 2017 that he also had Parkinson’s disease.
“Jesse Jackson has passed away, and President Trump wrote a lengthy message giving his thoughts on the passing of Jesse Jackson,” Littleton said in a Facebook post. “Now, some people are criticizing President Trump by saying, okay, Jesse has passed—why does President Trump need to take this moment to talk about all the things that he’s done? Maybe it’s because so many people keep pretending that it never happened. So many people are acting as if they have amnesia.”
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson moved to Chicago in 1964 to attend seminary. He became a close associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in major civil rights campaigns, including Operation Breadbasket. He later founded Operation PUSH, which developed into the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, a national organization promoting social and economic reform.
Jackson pursued the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, winning several primaries and caucuses and establishing himself as a prominent national political figure. He also served a term as a nonvoting shadow senator for Washington, D.C., representing the district before Congress.
Littleton said many observers fail to recognize Trump’s support of the Black community and Jackson’s initiatives, noting he is not racist.
“God rest his soul, but publicly Jesse did the same thing,” Littleton said. “And it was one of the issues that I always had—that he sat back and allowed President Trump to be slandered and called a racist. I don’t recall him ever coming out publicly and defending Trump. Regardless of the fact that many of us who know and remember know about President Trump’s support of the Rainbow Coalition, President Trump’s support of Jesse Jackson’s run to be the first black president, and his continued support of him throughout the years.”
Littleton added that Trump’s condolences and praise for Jackson reflect their long-standing friendship and his fair treatment of Black leaders.
“President Trump sent his condolences,” she said. “He still said something nice about him. He still maintained their friendship. But it’s interesting because the critique that people are giving President Trump is to say, oh, well, why is he taking this moment to talk about all the things he did? Because it’s righteous anger. It’s like he has to give condolences to Jesse Jackson, but you guys keep acting as if he did not do a lot for Jesse—and he has.”
News coverage after his death highlighted different aspects of his legacy. The Chicago Sun-Times emphasized his advocacy for social justice and his evolution from King’s protégé to leader of Operation Breadbasket, founder of Rainbow/PUSH, and presidential candidate. The Chicago Tribune focused on remembrances from his children, portraying him as a devoted father and long-standing champion of justice.
Some critics argued that Jackson occasionally exaggerated claims of systemic racism and mischaracterized economic and social challenges in Black communities, suggesting that his political ambitions sometimes diverged from grassroots civil rights work.
Hosea Williams, a longtime aide to King, disputed Jackson’s claim that he held King when he was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968, saying Jackson never approached him and accusing him of appearing the next day at a Chicago press conference wearing a blood-stained shirt in what Williams called a staged display.
“I realized the only way Jesse could have gotten that blood was to stoop down on that floor of the Lorraine Motel and rake that blood off that floor and put that blood on him, and I went crazy, I really tried to kill Jesse,” Williams said in an interview.
Pastor, author, and commentator Jesse Lee Peterson described Jackson’s legacy as polarizing, linking his activism to later policy debates over affirmative action, reparations, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and arguing that his efforts expanded from civil rights advocacy into broader political movements with lasting effects on race relations.
“It went from this idea that racism exists, and somehow or another, we need equal rights,” Peterson told Chicago City Wire. “Then it went from that to affirmative action. Then it went to reparations. And then they called it DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). It just never ends.”
Kenneth R. Timmerman, author of Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, alleged that Jackson used political influence and accusations of racism to secure corporate donations for Rainbow/PUSH, sometimes reaching $1 million, calling the practice corporate “shakedowns” that shaped later diversity policies.
“There are two basic approaches towards the issue of race, especially at that time and going forward,” Timmerman said. “Martin Luther King said you should judge a person on the basis of their character. Jesse Jackson said you should judge them on the basis of the color of their skin and quotas. I think that was a very destructive view.”
Timmerman also contended that Jackson lent legitimacy to controversial foreign leaders, including Liberian President Charles Taylor and Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, and said Jackson’s role in the 1999 Lomé peace agreement gave Sankoh control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines, fueling the “blood diamond” trade.
Littleton said Trump acted out of principle, not profit, demonstrating he is not motivated by racial bias.
“And not because he needed to or because it made him money,” Littleton said. “No, just because he helped, and he did it for free. When he offered space at 40 Wall Street for the Rainbow Coalition and created jobs, and rightfully praised the fact that these opportunities were going to go to Blacks and minorities—and that he was proud of it—way before he ever even thought about or had any desire to be president,”
Memorial events in Chicago are planned to honor Jackson’s life, including public viewings at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters on Feb. 25–26, a “People’s Celebration” at the House of Hope on Feb. 27, and a Homegoing Service at Rainbow/PUSH on Feb. 28.
Littleton is a Creative Writer, Environmentalist, and Founder of Ardor Bin, a sustainable home fragrance brand. She holds a BA in Creative Writing and an MFA in Strategic Communications from Georgia State University and focuses on artistic, environmental, and social impact initiatives.