Updated March 6 with information about the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s celebration of life.

Speakers at the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s celebration of life in Chicago on Friday will certainly reflect on his civil rights, religious and political leadership. But one of Jackson’s most important legacies was raising awareness around the HIV/AIDS epidemic at a time when it was a taboo topic in political circles.

His advocacy began shortly after the disease emerged in the early 1980s. Jackson, who died Feb. 17 at age 84, led a push for more funding for research on prevention and treatment.

Jesse Jackson Was An HIV/AIDS-Advocacy Pioneer

Health officials became aware in 1981 of a then-mysterious disease that was affecting young and previously healthy gay men in the U.S. This was after a constellation of cases involving severely immunodeficient men were reported to the agency in 1981 by hospitals in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1982, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first used the term........

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