Jesse Jackson Sr.’s flag-draped casket arrived at the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia on Monday, where thousands waited to pay tribute to the civil rights leader who grew up in the segregated state. The state ceremony unfolded beneath the Capitol’s rotunda, with Jackson’s body on display for the public after the doors opened.
The procession included a horse-drawn caisson bringing Jackson’s body to the Capitol, followed by white-gloved state troopers bringing the casket inside. The service marked Jackson as only the second Black person to lie in state at the South Carolina Capitol.
Before members of the public were allowed in, the ceremony began with guests and officials remembering a career that started in South Carolina. The program recalled that in 1960, Jackson led seven Black high school students into a whites-only library branch, where they sat quietly reading books and magazines before being arrested.
Music and history intertwined during the service, which opened with a rousing version of the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Organizers staged it in the Statehouse, a building partially destroyed in 1865 during the Civil War, when South Carolina seceded to start keeping slavery, according to the AP account.
As the service proceeded, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn spoke of a longtime connection to Jackson and credited Jackson’s work with making space for him. Clyburn said, “Because of his efforts, I can sit where I am today,” and AP reported that Clyburn first met Jackson when both were on rival high school sports teams in segregated South Carolina.
Jackson’s family said he should lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, but House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office declined the request, AP reported. During Monday’s ceremony, Jackson’s son, Jesse Jackson Jr., said South Carolina felt more fitting than Washington in honoring his father.
After the public opening, people lined up for hours, with AP describing a line seven blocks long. Attendees walked to the second floor to view the casket, where troopers in dress uniforms asked people politely to keep moving, giving visitors a brief moment to pray or take a picture.
The AP report described a stark juxtaposition inside the room: behind Jackson’s casket, with his back turned, stood a statue of former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun, identified by AP as a zealous defender of slavery. Clyburn’s remarks and the program’s early focus on the 1960 library case placed Jackson’s story of civil rights organizing in the broader context of South Carolina’s segregationist past.
Jackson died Feb. 17 at age 84, AP reported, after a rare neurological disorder affected his mobility and ability to speak in later years. The ceremony also looked beyond South Carolina to Jackson’s work nationally and internationally, including his advocacy for the poor and underrepresented on voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care.
The AP account said the state ceremonies are part of two weeks of events that began with Jackson’s body lying in repose last week at Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Chicago headquarters. After South Carolina, Jackson’s family planned a celebration of life at a megachurch in Chicago and final homegoing services at Rainbow PUSH headquarters, while AP reported that plans for a Washington, D.C., service were postponed.
Mayor Knox White of Greenville said Jackson’s legacy extended to all residents of the state, citing modern economic growth and asking people to consider what would have been possible in segregated South Carolina. “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 service also referenced a prior state honor for another Black figure at the Capitol: Clementa Pinckney, a state senator shot and killed in the 2015 Charleston church shooting. AP said Pinckney was the only other Black person to lie in state at the South Carolina Capitol.
When the public viewed Jackson’s casket on Monday, visitors brought their own memories and calls for action. George Curtis, who drove nearly three hours from Greensboro, North Carolina, wore a hat with Jackson’s name and said Jackson’s legacy depended on people voting, urging, “But everybody has to vote. The way things are going, you have to vote,” according to AP’s account.