Services for Rev. Jesse Jackson to include lying in SC Statehouse, celebration of life

COLUMBIA — Mourners can pay their respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who died last week, at the Statehouse on Monday morning and at a nearby church that evening.

Jackson, a native of Greenville, died Feb. 17 at the age of 84. He worked with Martin Luther King Jr. as a young adult, before leading his own political movement that helped shape the modern Democratic Party.

Services will begin at 9 a.m. with a procession from Leevy’s Funeral Home to the Statehouse. A horse-drawn wagon, known as a caisson, will carry Jackson’s casket the mile distance.

Jackson’s family will hold a private wreath-laying ceremony at the Statehouse beginning at 10 a.m. Members of the public can enter to pay their respects from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which Jackson founded.

A number of lawmakers, including Gov. Henry McMaster, House Speaker Murrell Smith, and Greenville Mayor Knox White, are expected to attend the private ceremony. The Wardlaw Brothers, a gospel group from Georgia, will perform musical selections, according to a Thursday news release.

A public tribute and celebration of Jackson’s life will take place at Brookland Baptist Church in West Columbia from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., led by the Rev. Charles Jackson Sr.

Jesse Jackson is likely the first person to lie in state who was not an elected official, according to the state Department of Archives and History.

McMaster agreed at the request of Jackson’s family after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson denied their request for Jackson to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

At least 11 people have lain in state in the Statehouse between 1873 and 2015, said researcher Patrick McCawley, who noted the agency does not keep a comprehensive list of those who have received the honor.

Seven were former governors, including James Orr, the state’s first popularly elected governor, who laid in state in 1873 in an unfinished Statehouse.

Jackson will be only the second Black South Carolinian ever honored with a viewing at the Statehouse since its completion in 1903.

The first was Sen. Clementa Pinckney, whose open coffin was on display after he was killed in the June 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Although he was born in Greenville, Jackson spent much of his life in Chicago. He is lying in repose at Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s headquarters in Chicago on Thursday and Friday. More services are expected in Washington, D.C., after Jackson lies in state in South Carolina, though details have not yet been announced.

Back in Chicago, a public homecoming celebration will take place honoring Jackson at the 10,000-seat church House of Hope on March 6, beginning at 9 a.m. Another ceremony will follow March 7, back at Rainbow PUSH headquarters. The family will livestream the services for anyone who wants to watch on a website honoring Jackson’s legacy.

Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette