Former US President Barack Obama said that the presidential campaigns of the late pastor Jesse Jackson in the 1980s paved the way for other black leaders, including his own successful presidential campaign and re-election, the Associated Press reported.
"The message he sent to the 22-year-old child of a single mother with a strange name, an outsider, was that maybe there is no place or space where we don't belong," Obama said. "He paved the way for so many others to follow."
Obama was joined by two other former Democratic presidents, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, at the memorial ceremony. He received the loudest applause when the three entered the room.
"We live in a time when it can be hard to have hope," Obama said. "Every day we wake up to some new attack on our democratic institutions. Another blow to the idea of the rule of law, another affront to accepted norms of behavior. Every day we wake up to things we just didn't think were possible."
"Every day we are told by people in high places to be afraid of each other," Obama said, referring to the current Republican leadership in Washington.
Former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is also on the program's speaker list.
President Donald Trump, who praised Jackson on social media after his death and shared photos of the two together, will not attend the funeral, according to his public schedule released by the White House.
Thousands of people gathered at a church on Chicago's South Side to pay their last public respects to Jackson. They ranged from former presidents to NBA Hall of Famers and prominent church pastors. Stories of the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr.'s influence on politics, corporate boards, and strikes were prominent at the memorial service.