After a storied civil rights career, Jesse Jackson heads home to South Carolina and lies in state

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr. was honored Monday in the state where he grew up under segregation with a hero’s memorial, his flag-draped casket under the Capitol’s rotunda and thousands of people circling the Statehouse grounds waiting to honor him.

A horse-drawn caisson brought Jackson’s body to the Capitol and white-gloved state troopers brought the casket inside, where Jackson was only the second Black person to lie in state.

The service started with a rousing version of the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” that reverberated through the Statehouse — a building that was partially destroyed in 1865 during the Civil War, which South Carolina started to keep slavery.

Before the doors opened to the public, politicians and other guests remembered a man who grew up in Greenville and, in 1960, led seven Black high school students into the whites-only library branch. They sat down, quietly read books and magazines, and were arrested. And Jackson’s civil rights career began.

“Because of his efforts, I can sit where I am today,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, who has served 33 years in Congress and first met Jackson when they were on rival high school sports teams in segregated South Carolina. They forged a lifelong friendship through the civil rights struggle.

Thousands line up to pay respect to Jackson

Jackson died Feb. 17 at age 84. He had a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and ability to speak in his later years.

When the Statehouse doors opened to the public, a line seven blocks long was waiting. People walked up to the second floor and were given a moment to pray or take a picture before a trooper in a dress uniform politely asked them to keep moving.

Behind Jackson’s casket, with his back turned, was a statue of former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun, a zealous defender of slavery.

The South Carolina services are part of two weeks of events. It began with Jackson’s body lying in repose last week at his Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Chicago headquarters.

After South Carolina, Jackson will be returned to Chicago for a large celebration of life gathering at a megachurch and the final homegoing services at the Rainbow PUSH headquarters. Plans for a service in Washington, D.C., to honor him have been postponed.

Jackson’s family asked that he lie in honor at the United States Capitol Rotunda. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office declined the request because the space is typically reserved for former presidents, the military and select officials.

“In some respects, South Carolina makes more sense than Washington, D.C.,” said Jackson’s son Jesse Jackson Jr., thanking the people of the state for embracing his father as he pushed to make it a better place.

Jackson fought for the poor

Nationally and internationally, Jesse Jackson Sr. advocated for the poor and underrepresented for voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders.

Through his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society. He was the Civil Rights Movement’s torchbearer after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and would run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

George Curtis drove nearly three hours from Greensboro, North Carolina. He is a North Carolina A&T University graduate, like Jackson, and that connection led them to meet several times. Curtis wore his hat with Jackson’s name on it in support of one of his favorite causes. On the side, it said, “Keep hope alive. Vote!”

“He was a great guy. His legacy will live on. But everybody has to vote. The way things are going, you have to vote,” Curtis said.

Jackson was present in 2015 when the South Carolina House voted to finally remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds. Several were placed there during the 1960s in opposition to the federal government’s push for integration.

South Carolina’s longest-serving legislator found Jackson in the celebration. Democratic Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said he pulled her aside.

“It’s great to take down the Confederate flag. But what about the Confederate agenda,” Cobb-Hunter recalled him saying. “What I want people to remember is there is still much work to do.”

Mayor says Jackson ‘freed us all’

Jackson also pushed in 2003 for Greenville County to honor King by matching the federal holiday in his honor.

It’s not just Black South Carolinians who owe Jackson a debt of gratitude. Anyone who enjoys the rewards of a rapidly growing state, thanks in part to manufacturers like luxury carmaker BMW and airplane maker Boeing locating here, owes him, Greenville Mayor Knox White said.

“Can you imagine a BMW or a Boeing would locate in a segregated South Carolina? Of course not,” White said. “He freed us all.”

The only other Black man to lie in state at the South Carolina Capitol was state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was shot and killed in the 2015 Charleston church shooting that led to the removal of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds.

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Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.