The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a game-changing civil rights activist, has died at the age of 84. Jackson might be best known for his 1984 and 1988 presidential runs, and for his leadership alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but his impact spans far beyond these moments. Jackson negotiated for the release of American hostages around the world, and held corporations accountable for their lack of diversity. In 1996, he founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a Chicago-based nonprofit that merged two preexisting organizations, People United to Serve Humanity (PUSH) and the Rainbow Coalition, which Jackson founded in 1971 and 1984, respectively. The Rainbow Push Coalition preserves its founder’s legacy through initiatives focused on voter registration, policy reform, and corporate accountability. 

Over the course of his life, Jackson gave two interviews with Playboy: One in 1969, which framed him as the “fiery heir apparent” to King after his assassination, and another in 1984, where he candidly discussed his first presidential candidacy. Ever the orator, Jackson packed each interview with nuance, and rich subtext. We combed through both interviews and picked out his best words of wisdom. Read on for Jackson’s thoughts on pacifism, the Black Panther Party, and everything in between.

On Nonviolence

“We will be as nonviolent as we can be and as violent as we must be.” November 1969

“The competition to non-violence does not come from Stokely or Eldridge; it comes from America’s traditions. It comes from little children seeing cowboys solve their moral problems by killing. The competition to nonviolence comes from the military draft, with its nine weeks’ training on how to kill. The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.” November 1969

On survival

“If a man is drowning, he’ll reach for any raft; it’s his only way of surviving.” June 1984

“To me, violence is starving a child or maintain- ing a mother on insufficient welfare. Violence is going to school 12 years and getting five years’ worth of education. Violence is 30,000,000 hungry in the most abundant nation on earth. White America must understand that men will steal before they starve, that if there is a choice of a man’s living or dying, he will choose to live, even if it means other men die. These are human reactions, and we cannot assume that black people are going to be anything less than human.” November 1969

On Freedom

“I’m very sympathetic to the Panthers. They are the logical result of the white man’s brutalization of blacks. The remarkable thing about them is that they have not conducted any military offenses. They have not gone to downtown America to shoot up white-owned stores. The Panthers are a defense for justice, just as the Ku Klux Klan is an offense for injustice.” November 1969

“Death itself isn’t enough to stop Black men from being free, for crucifixion leads to resurrection.” November 1969

On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“All societies emasculate their martyrs in time. If those martyrs had been as socially acceptable in life as they are in death, they wouldn’t have died the way they did.” June 1984

On Government

“My grandmother has lived through every President from 1900 to 1969, and the sum total of their grass-roots programs has not been able to teach her the 26 letters of the alphabet.” November 1969

“The sense of selfishness and greed of the present administration has set a climate in the country that most Americans don’t identify with in their heart of hearts.” June 1984

On Playboy

“I think that in some sense, Playboy has had this strange combination of the universal appeal of sex on one hand and its challenging intellectual appeal—these classic Interviews—on the other; it attracts an interesting, an unusual mix of people. It’s similar to this country’s strength: Many people who take pride in the freedom of our secular society reject the fact that this is a secular state.” June 1984