\n<\/p>\n
CHICAGO — <\/span>From jokes about his well-known stubbornness to tears grieving the loss of a parent, the adult children of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. gave an emotional tribute Wednesday honoring the legacy of the late civil rights icon, a day after his death. <\/p>\n Jackson died Tuesday<\/a> at his home in Chicago after battling a rare neurological disorder<\/a> that affected his ability to move and speak. Standing on the steps outside his longtime Chicago home, five of his children, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, remembered him not only for his decades-long work in civil rights but also for his role as spiritual leader and father. <\/p>\n \u201cOur father is a man who dedicated his life to public service to gain, protect and defend civil rights and human rights to make our nation better, to make the world more just, our people better neighbors with each other,” said his youngest son, Yusef Jackson, fighting back tears at times. <\/p>\n The family said details on funeral arrangements for Jackson would be announced at a later time, but services will begin next week, with him lying in repose at the headquarters of the organization he founded, Rainbow\/PUSH Coalition in Chicago, which his son Yusef oversees. Services will follow at a church large enough to accommodate expected crowds. <\/p>\n Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., joining the voting rights march<\/a> King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.<\/p>\n Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain. <\/p>\n Remembrances have poured in worldwide for Jackson, including flowers left outside the home where large portraits of a smiling Jackson had been placed. But his children said he was a family man first.<\/p>\n \u201cOur father took fatherhood very seriously,\u201d his eldest child, Santita Jackson, said. \u201cIt was his charge to keep.\u201d<\/p>\n His children’s reflections were poetic in the style of the late civil rights icon \u2014 filled with prayer, tears and a few chuckles, including about disagreements that occur when growing up in a large, lively family.<\/p>\n