Columbia, South Carolina — After a long career of fighting for civil rights, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. He visits his home for the last time lie in state In the South Carolina capital on Monday.
The final, full honor from the state of his birth is a far cry from his childhood in segregated Greenville, where in 1960 he couldn’t go to the better-funded whites-only branch of the local library to check out a book he needed.
Jackson led seven black high school students to that segregated branch, where they sat and read books and magazines until they were arrested. The branches closed, then quietly reopened for everyone.
With this action, Jackson began his career—and his crusade—in the fight for equality for all. He will catch you Attention Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He joined King’s voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Jackson He died February 17 At the age of 84 after fighting A A rare neurological disorder Which affected his movement and ability to speak in his later years.
South Carolina Services is part of Two weeks of events. It started with Jackson’s body Lying in comfort Last week, he invited the public to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago.
After South Carolina, Jackson will return to Chicago for a major Celebration of Life gathering at a megachurch and final homecoming services at Rainbow PUSH headquarters. Plans for a prayer service in Washington, D.C., to honor him have been postponed to a later date.
Nationally, Jackson advocated for the poor and underrepresented regarding voting rights, job opportunities, education, and health care. He achieved diplomatic victories with world leaders.
Through the Rainbow PUSH coalition, he takes cries for black pride and self-determination to corporate boardrooms and pressures CEOs to make America a more open and equitable society. He stepped forward as a torchbearer for the civil rights movement after King’s assassination, and will run for party leadership Democratic nomination for president In 1984 and 1988.
Jackson has continued his activism in his home state, pushing in 2003 for Greenville County to honor King by matching a federal holiday in his honor, and in 2015 by calling for the Confederate flag to be removed from South Carolina grounds after nine black worshipers were killed in a racist shooting at a Charleston church.
Jackson is the second Black man to lie in state at the South Carolina State Capitol. State Sen. Clementa Pinckney He was honored In 2015, he was shot and killed in a Charleston church shooting.
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Associated Press writer Sophia Tarin in Chicago contributed to this report.