WASHINGTON — The late Rev. Jesse Jackson will not lie in honor in the United States Capitol Rotunda after a request for the commemoration was denied by the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office due to past precedent.
Johnson’s office said it received a request from the family to have Jackson’s remains lie in honor at the Capitol, but the request was denied, because of the precedent that the space is typically reserved for former presidents, the military and select officials.
The civil rights leader died this week at the age of 84. The family and some House Democrats had filed a request for Jackson to be honored at the U.S. Capitol.
Amid the country’s political divisions, there have been flare-ups over who is memorialized at the Capitol with a service to lie in state, or honor, in the Rotunda. During such events, the public is generally allowed to visit the Capitol and pay their respects.
Recent requests had similarly been made, and denied, to honor Charlie Kirk, the slain conservative activist, and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
There is no specific rule about who qualifies for the honor, a decision that is controlled by concurrence from both the House and Senate.
The Jackson family has announced scheduled dates for memorial services beginning next week that will honor the late reverend’s life in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and South Carolina. In a statement, the Jackson family said it had heard from leaders in South Carolina, Jackson’s native state, and Washington offering for Jackson to be celebrated in both locations. Talks are ongoing with lawmakers about where those proceedings will take place. His final memorial services will be held in Chicago on March 6 and 7.
Typically, the Capitol and its Rotunda have been reserved for the “most eminent citizens,” according to the Architect of the Capitol’s website. It said government and military officials lie in state, while private citizens in honor.
In 2020, Rep. John Lewis, another veteran of the civil rights movement, was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda after a ceremony honoring his legacy was held outside on the Capitol steps because of pandemic restrictions at the time.
Later that year, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) allowed services for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Capitol’s Statuary Hall after agreement could not be reached for services in the Capitol’s Rotunda.
It is rare for private citizens to be honored at the Capitol, but there is precedent — most notably civil rights icon Rosa Parks, in 2005, and the Rev. Billy Graham, in 2018.
A passionate civil rights leader and globally minded humanitarian, Jackson’s fiery speeches and dual 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns transformed American politics for generations. Jackson’s organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, became a hub for progressive organizers across the country.
His unapologetic calls for a progressive economic agenda and more inclusive policies for all racial groups, religions, genders and orientations laid the groundwork for the progressive movement within the Democratic Party.
Jackson also garnered a global reputation as a champion for human rights. He conducted the release of American hostages on multiple continents and argued for greater connections between civil rights movements around the world, most notably as a fierce critic of the policies of apartheid in South Africa.
After the students’ demonstration on February 12, Venezuela’s most important university will again test how open the Rodríguez regime really is by talking about what they don’t want to hear: that chavismo lost the 2024 vote on a landslide, with Delcy running the economy and Jorge managing the campaign, before Maduro to stole the election.
This Saturday, on February 21st, an international event that advocates for amnesty in Venezuela will screen in 20 cities around the world the documentary that tells the story of the civilian mobilization that defended the votes and documented the results, the fraud, the people’s revolt, and the unprecedented crackdown.
In late 2024, Hacha y Machete, an activism network and communications platform composed of a multidisciplinary team of Venezuelan migrants and residents, dedicated itself to preserving the memory of what happened on July 28th and the days and months that followed. Now, it promotes the International Day for Amnesty in Venezuela with the support of organizations such as the Committee for the Liberation of Political Prisoners (CLIPPVE), the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA), Laboratorio de Paz and Laboratorio Ciudadano, with the message of justice, not impunity.
The documentaryDe Macedonia con amor reconstructs the courage of citizens and the consequences of repression. You can watch it here, or you can join the events. In Washington DC there will be a conversation sponsored by George Washington University (GWU) and WOLA, with Betilde Muñoz, director of Access to Rights at the Organization of American States (OAS); Isabella Picón, activist and PhD candidate at GWU; and Laura Dib, Director of the Venezuela Program at WOLA, at 2:00 pm at the Lindner Family Commons, on the sixth floor of the Elliot School of International Affairs (1957 E St, NW).
In Caracas, the screening will take place at FACES, seventh floor, at the Sala de Usos Múltiples (11:00 am). Let’s what happens.
Here’s the other participant cities and the schedule:
Mexico City: Cineclub Mar de Lava, Av. Francisco Sosa 298, Coyoacán. (01.00 pm)
Madrid: Bar Cotorrita, Calle Santa Engracia, 33. (05.00 pm)
Barcelona (Spain): Ateneu El Poblet, Carrer de Nàpols, 268-270, Eixample. (6.00 pm)
Buenos Aires: Casa Sur, Av. Diaz Velez, 4736, CABA. (04.00 pm)
For months, United States President Donald Trump has called him a “sick man” and an “illegal drug leader”.
But on Tuesday, Trump welcomed his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting in Washington, DC.
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Both leaders hailed the meeting as productive, while acknowledging the lingering tensions that divide them.
At a news conference after their meeting, Petro waved away questions about his rocky history with Trump, whom he has publicly accused of human rights violations.
Instead, he called the interaction “ a meeting between two equals who have different ways of thinking”.
“He didn’t change his way of his thinking. Neither did I. But how do you do an agreement, a pact? It’s not as between twin brothers. It’s between opponents,” Petro said.
Separately, Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he felt good about the meeting. “I thought it was terrific,” he said.
On the agenda for the two leaders were issues including the fight against transnational drug trafficking and security in Latin America.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting.
A White House charm offensive
Over the past year, Trump has invited the media to participate in his meetings with foreign leaders, often holding news conferences with the visiting dignitaries in the Oval Office.
Not this time, however. The meeting between Trump and Petro lasted nearly two hours, all of it behind closed doors.
But the two leaders emerged with largely positive things to say about one another.
In a post on social media, Petro revealed that Trump had gifted him several items, including a commemorative photograph of their meeting accompanied by a signed note.
“Gustavo – a great honor. I love Colombia,” it read, followed by Trump’s signature.
In another post, Petro showed off a signed copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. On its title page, Trump had scrawled another note to Petro: “You are great.”
“Can someone tell me what Trump said in this dedication?” Petro wrote jokingly in Spanish on social media. “I don’t understand much English.”
A turning point in a tense relationship?
Petro’s joke appeared to be a cheeky nod to his notoriously rocky relationship with Trump.
It was only six days into Trump’s second term, on January 26, 2025, that he and Petro began their feud, trading threats on social media over the fate of two US deportation flights.
Petro objected to the reported human rights violations facing the deportees. Trump, meanwhile, took Petro’s initial refusal to accept the flights as a threat to US “national security”. Petro ultimately backed down after Trump threatened steep sanctions on imported Colombian goods.
They continued to trade barbs in the months since. Petro, for instance, has condemned the deadly US attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, comparing the strikes with murder.
He has also criticised Trump for carrying out a US military offensive in Venezuela to abduct then-President Nicolas Maduro. That attack, Petro said, was tantamount to “kidnapping”.
Trump, meanwhile, stripped Petro of his US visa following the Colombian leader’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, where he criticised the US and briefly joined a pro-Palestinian protest.
The Trump administration also sanctioned Petro in October, blaming the left-wing leader for allowing “drug cartels to flourish”.
After removing Maduro from power on January 3, Trump offered a warning to Petro: he had better “watch his a**”. The statement was widely interpreted to be a threat of military action against Colombia.
But Trump and Petro appeared to have reached a turning point last month. On January 7, the two leaders held their first call together. Tuesday’s in-person meeting marked another first in their relationship.
Agreeing to disagree
Despite the easing tensions, the two leaders used their public statements after the meeting to reaffirm their differences.
Trump was the first to speak, holding a news conference in the Oval Office as he signed legislation to end a government shutdown.
The US president, a member of the right-wing Republican Party, used the appearance to reflect on the political tensions the two leaders had in the lead-up to the meeting.
“He and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but I wasn’t insulted, because I’d never met him,” Trump told reporters.
He added that Tuesday’s meeting was nevertheless pleasant. “I didn’t know him at all, and we got along very well.”
Petro, meanwhile, held a longer news conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, where he raised some points of divergence he had with Trump.
Among the topics he mentioned was Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which the US has supported, and sustainable energy initiatives designed to be carbon neutral. Trump, in the past, has called the so-called green energy programmes a “scam”.
Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader, also reflected on his region’s history with colonialism and foreign intervention. He told reporters it was important that Latin America make decisions for itself, free from any outside “coercion”.
“ We don’t operate under blackmail,” he said at one point, in an apparent reference to Trump’s pressure campaigns.
Differing approach to combating drug trafficking
One of the primary points of contention, however, was Petro’s approach to combating drug trafficking.
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, responsible for 68 percent of the global supply.
The Trump administration has used the fight against global drug trafficking as a justification for carrying out lethal military strikes in international waters and in Venezuela, despite experts condemning the attacks as illegal under international law.
It has also stripped Colombia of its certification as an ally in its global counter-narcotics operations.
Trump’s White House has said it will consider reversing that decision if Petro takes “more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking”.
But Petro has rejected any attempt to label him as soft on drug trafficking, instead touting the historic drug busts his government has overseen.
He made this argument yet again after Tuesday’s meeting, claiming that no other Colombian administration had done as much as his to fight cocaine trafficking.
Rather than take a militarised approach to destroying crops of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, Petro argued that he has had more success with voluntary eradication programmes.
This push, he said, succeeded in “getting thousands of peasant farmers to uproot the plant themselves”.
“These are two different methods, two different ways of understanding how to fight drug trafficking,” Petro said. “One that is brutal and self-interested, and what it ends up doing is promoting mafia powers and drug traffickers, and another approach, which is intelligent, which is effective.”
Petro maintained it was more strategic to go after top drug-ring leaders than to punish impoverished rural farmers by forcibly ripping up their crops.
“I told President Trump, if you want an ally in fighting drug trafficking, it’s going after the top kingpins,” he said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks during a news conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, on February 3 [Jose Luis Magana/AP]
A Trumpian note
Tuesday’s meeting ultimately marked yet another high-profile reversal for Trump, who has a history of shifting his relationships with world leaders.
Last year, for instance, he lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a public Oval Office clash, only to warm to the wartime leader several months later.
But Colombia is quickly approaching a pivotal presidential election in May, which will see Petro’s left-wing coalition, the Historic Pact, seek to defend the presidency against an ascendant far right.
Petro himself cannot run for consecutive terms under Colombian law. But there is speculation that Tuesday’s detente with Trump may help Petro’s coalition avoid US condemnation ahead of the vote.
Colombia, after all, was until recently the largest recipient of US aid in South America, and it has long harboured close ties with the North American superpower. Straining those ties could therefore be seen as an election liability.
While Petro acknowledged his differences with Trump during his remarks, at times he expressed certain views that overlapped with the US president’s.
Like Trump has in the past, Petro used part of his speech on Tuesday to question the role of the UN in maintaining global security.
“ Did it not show incapacity? Isn’t a reform needed?” Petro asked, wondering aloud if there was “something superior to the United Nations that would bring humanity together better in a better way”.
But when it came to donning Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Petro drew a line – or rather, a squiggle.
On social media, he shared an adjustment he made to the cap’s slogan. A jagged, Sharpie-inked “S” amended the phrase to include the entire Western Hemisphere: “Make Americas Great Again.”
