Rev. Jesse Jackson returns home to South Carolina to lie in state for final public farewell

COLUMBIA, S.C. — After a long career of fighting for civil rights, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is visiting his home for one last time to lie in state at the South Carolina Capitol on Monday.

The final full honors from the state where he was born is a far cry from his childhood in segregated Greenville, where in 1960 he couldn’t go inside the local library’s much better funded whites-only branch to check out a book he needed.

Jackson led seven Black high school students into that segregated branch, where they sat down and read books and magazines until they were arrested. The branches closed, then quietly reopened for all.

With that action, Jackson launched his career — and crusade — fighting for equality for all. He would catch the attention of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and join the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

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

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

Around 9 a.m. Monday, a horse-drawn procession will take his casket from Leevy’s funeral home in downtown Columbia to the State House. At that location, a Highway Patrol honor guard will carry him inside the capitol building to the rotunda.

Leevy’s Funeral Home said the services will begin on March 2 at 9 a.m. with a processional from Leevy’s Funeral Home on Taylor Street to the South Carolina State House, followed by a private welcoming ceremony.

Following a private Jackson family ceremony, Jackson will lie in state from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This will be open to the public. 

Jackson’s memorial service will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. at Brookland Baptist Church in West Columbia. This will also be open to the public.

Lying in state is an extremely rare honor but was requested by Jackson’s family and granted by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster. Jackson is the second Black person to be honored in this way at the State House. The Rev. and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who died in the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, was the first.

McMaster ordered flags atop the State House be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset Monday.

WLTX, a TEGNA station based in South Carolina, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.