It continues to be a bad month for the Drop 40 inhabitants as the Civil Rights Movement titan Jesse Jackson departs the world at the age of 84. Born in South Carolina, he first attended the University of Illinois on a football scholarship before transferring to North Carolina A&T, and went to graduate in Sociology. Further studies in Theology and an ordainment as a baptist minister followed, and he then turned his attention to the Civil Rights Movement full time.
He came to prominence in the mid-60’s after gaining the notice of Martin Luther King, albeit not without reservations around just how much of Jackson’s drive was about personal ambition. Jackson was tasked with setting up a branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Chicago and went on to head Operation Breadbasket, designed to help improve the economic prospects of black Americans. He was present at Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, though his somewhat embellished account of King dying in his arms didn’t do him any favours with the rest of the SCLC leadership. He ultimately left the movement in 1971 after several bitter disputes in the power struggles following the death of King, taking most of the board members with him.
He later turned to politics more directly and twice ran for the presidential nomination for the Democrats, the second African American and the first male to do so. He performed far above expectations in both campaigns but ultimately lost out to Walter Mondale in 1984, then Michael Dukakis in 1988. They both went on to get completely obliterated in the elections and became footnotes in history, so Jackson gets the last laugh there I suppose.
His health began a long downward trajectory in 2017 with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, though this was later corrected to PSP in 2025. A lengthy stay in a nursing home for most of December secured him a spot on the Drop 40, and his death pays dividends for seventy teams, including the first hit of the year for yours truly! His death combined with that of Brad Arnold and a James Van Der Beek joker also means Pretty Noose takes the lead on the scoreboard.
Just don’t mention the half-brother…
Jesse Jackson, Drop 40 #18
October 8 1941 – February 17 2026
63 Teams 💀💀💀💀💀💀+40 = 9 Points
7 Teams 🃏 = 18 Points