The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. will step down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights organization whose predecessor he founded over 50 years ago, his son's congressional office said on Friday.

Rep. Jonathan Jackson's (D-IL) team confirmed that the congressman's father, 81, intends to hand the reins of the day-to-day operations of Rainbow PUSH to a successor that the civil rights icon will announce at the annual Rainbow PUSH convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday. Vice President Kamala Harris will keynote the event. The senior Jackson, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017, started Rainbow PUSH in 1996 to pursue social justice and civil rights issues.

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“He’s had physical challenges, but he never stopped fighting," the younger Jackson said of his father. "He’s been fighting for civil rights since 1961. He didn’t give up when there were forces against the Voting Rights Act, or forces against the Equal Rights Amendment or addressing priorities at home or peace abroad."

Rainbow PUSH is the product of a merger Jackson spearheaded of Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition, two nonprofit organizations he founded in 1971 and 1984, respectively. The ordained minister rose to prominence working alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who became his mentor. Jackson led scores of protests to desegregate theaters, restaurants, and other establishments.

Jackson started Operation PUSH through King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Operation Breadbasket, a coalition of black ministers and businessmen. King founded the organization in 1962, and appointed Jackson the group's first director in Chicago.

He founded the National Rainbow Coalition shortly after his 1984 presidential bid in an effort to seek equal rights and lobby the federal government for social programs, voting rights, and affirmative action for Americans left out of "Reaganomics," the Rainbow PUSH website says.

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Jackson has stayed engaged in civil rights and politics and remains a familiar face in both scenes.

He has led a number of protests against racial injustice in recent years and continues to stay engaged in Beltway politics through his son, whom he traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this year to be with as he was sworn in as a member of the House.