Rae Lewis-Thornton kept her HIV diagnosis secret for years, even as she worked closely alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson through the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and his presidential campaigns.

When she finally told him, she braced for the uncertainty that defined the early years of the AIDS crisis: stigma, fear and silence.

Instead, Jackson responded simply.

“I loved you before AIDS, and I love you with AIDS,” Jackson told Lewis-Thornton.

For Lewis-Thornton, the moment captured Jackson’s personal response to HIV and his willingness to confront stigma long before it was politically safe.

“That’s the humanity he showed everyone,” Lewis-Thornton said.

Jackson, who died at 84 on Feb. 17, leaves behind a civil rights legacy that includes decades of HIV advocacy alongside sustained support for LGBTQ+ communities—work that unfolded not as a side issue but as part of his broader vision of a “Rainbow Coalition” that included people living with HIV, gay and lesbian Americans and other marginalized communities.

Much of that history was documented in Chicago’s LGBTQ+ press, where coverage across the 1980s and beyond tracked Jackson’s repeated engagement with the movement at key political and cultural moments.

Lewis-Thornton said that history remains under-recognized, even among people familiar with Jackson’s broader civil rights work.

“He has an HIV and LGBTQ legacy,” Lewis-Thornton said. “That history matters.”

Bringing LGBTQ+ rights into the coalition

Albert “Bill” Williams, who edited GayLife in the 1980s, remembers watching Jesse Jackson’s 1984 Democratic National Convention speech from the publication’s office—a historic address that marked the first time a presidential candidate called for gay and lesbian rights from the convention stage.

Jackson’s decision to explicitly include gay and lesbian Americans on a national platform was groundbreaking, Williams said, particularly within a civil rights movement where LGBTQ+ inclusion remained contested.

“It was huge,” Williams said, noting the significance of a presidential candidate identifying LGBTQ+ people as part of the progressive coalition on national television.

Jackson’s campaign reflected that approach internally as well. Lewis-Thornton, who worked on both of his presidential runs in 1984 and 1988, said the campaign had an AIDS policy from day one and designated staff focused on LGBTQ+ outreach—both of which were unheard of at the time.

The campaign’s relationship with LGBTQ+ politics extended beyond the convention stage.

As Jackson was preparing to run in 1983, he spoke at the Human Rights Campaign Fund’s second-annual dinner in New York, calling for a “meaningful dialogue” between the Civil Rights and gay movements, according to coverage of the event from the Washington Blade.

“Public policy must protect personal preference,” Jackson said at the dinner, adding that he was committed to “equal protection under the law.”

Jackson’s appearance at the dinner helped elevate the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the broader gay movement’s political standing, Williams said.

“It was huge, and it signaled that LGBTQ voters were part of presidential coalition politics,” Williams said.

Years later, as Jackson prepared for his second presidential campaign, he co-led the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights—a move that embodied his commitment to a Rainbow Coalition that included LGBTQ+ Americans.

The march brought together labor leaders, feminist organizers, civil rights figures and LGBTQ+ activists in a visible display of interconnected movements.

Williams covered the 1987 march and rally for Windy City Times, reporting that Jackson spoke about LGBTQ+ rights as being part of his presidential campaign, insisting that “everybody must have equal protection under the law” and calling on the country to address the AIDS crisis by creating a national health care plan that would “stop death and give life a chance.”

Williams said Jackson’s presence at the march carried symbolic weight but also political meaning.

“It embodied the Rainbow Coalition,” Williams said. “It was about the intersectionality of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Inclusion as a governing philosophy

As the AIDS crisis deepened in the 1980s, Jesse Jackson was among the few national civil rights leaders publicly confronting the epidemic, framing HIV as a civil rights issue.

Lewis-Thornton said Jackson was publicly addressing HIV in the early years of the crisis, incorporating AIDS policy into his campaigns and framing the disease as a civil rights issue.

The connection was personal to Jackson. In 1983, the Rainbow PUSH community mourned Keith Barrow, the son of civil rights leader Rev. Willie Barrow, who died of AIDS. The loss shaped early conversations inside the organization about stigma, care and public messaging.

Lewis-Thornton said Jackson’s response extended beyond speeches.

He visited AIDS hospices, supported public testing campaigns and used his influence to push Black clergy to engage the crisis rather than avoid it.

Lewis-Thornton said Jackson often made his advocacy visible in ways that challenged fear surrounding the disease. He visited AIDS hospices, sometimes staying overnight with patients at a time when stigma remained extreme.

“He slept in an AIDS hospice and wasn’t afraid to touch people with AIDS in an era where funeral parlors were refusing to bury people with AIDS,” Lewis-Thornton said. “Rev. Jackson was challenging that level of stigma.”

Jackson also used his standing within the Black church to push clergy to confront the epidemic publicly. Lewis-Thornton said Rainbow PUSH organized a series of HIV testing events in which ministers received tests from the podium during Saturday forums, transforming a private medical decision into a public act of leadership.

This encouraged other pastors to bring testing, education and care resources back to their own congregations and normalized conversations about HIV in spaces where stigma had been particularly strong, Lewis-Thornton said.

Jackson’s presidential campaign formalized that approach, and his 1984 and 1988 runs included AIDS policy, designated LGBTQ+ outreach staff and platform language addressing HIV years before such positions were common in national politics, Lewis-Thornton said.

“He chose to be on the moral side of the issue,” Lewis-Thornton said, arguing that people living with HIV deserved care, treatment and public support rather than silence.

Nicole Baldwin, community partnerships and special projects employment manager at AIDS Foundation Chicago, grew up connected to Jackson’s movement through her family. She said Jackson repeatedly emphasized that stigma itself was deadly because it prevented people from seeking care.

“He talked about the fact that we could not let this disease divide us,” Baldwin said.

A legacy built on coalition

Across decades, Jackson’s engagement with LGBTQ+ communities and HIV advocacy reflected a consistent framework: inclusion as strategy.

For Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th Ward), Jackson’s approach shaped how many Chicago leaders understand coalition politics today.

Robinson grew up attending Rainbow PUSH’s Saturday forums and said Jackson regularly emphasized that progress required protecting entire communities rather than isolated groups.

He described Jackson as a crucial ally at moments when LGBTQ+ people faced criticism from religious leaders and political institutions.

Robinson said that support helped create conditions for the growth of LGBTQ+ political leadership in Chicago and nationally.

“It made it known that we were part of the full rainbow,” Robinson said.

Robinson said Jackson’s allyship carried particular weight because it came during periods of open criticism from some religious leaders and political figures.

“When other ministers were bashing us, Rev. Jackson stood firm in his support of the LGBTQ+ community,” Robinson said.

Lewis-Thornton said that willingness to absorb pushback was central to Jackson’s leadership style.

“There’s always a backlash to allyship,” Lewis-Thornton said. “But he chose to be on the moral side of the issue.”

Jackson’s engagement extended well beyond the early AIDS years. He remained visible at LGBTQ+ mobilizations, supported marriage equality and continued urging Democratic leaders to treat LGBTQ+ rights and HIV policy as central to the party’s civil rights platform.

That continuity is what people should remember, Lewis-Thornton said.

Jackson’s legacy, she said, includes HIV advocacy and LGBTQ+ support not as footnotes, but as integral parts of a civil rights vision built on the idea that dignity, care and political power are interconnected.

“The right to vote for us and demanding the right for people with AIDS to live with dignity—it’s all the same thing,” she said.