COLUMBIA, S.C. — Soldrea Roberts grew up around the corner from the late civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson’s nonprofit, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, on the south side of Chicago.

She remembers seeing him around in coffee shops, waiting rooms and at marches in her Chicago neighborhood. Roberts also said she went to the same school as his grandchildren.

Now, Roberts is an OBGYN in Orangeburg, where she moved to escape the Chicago weather. Paying respects to Jackson, who will lie in state at the South Carolina State House on Monday, was important to her.

“I just feel like we have limited opportunities in life to pay respects to people that laid the foundation,” Roberts said. “For me to be able to get to where I am, go to medical school and be successful.”

Jackson, a South Carolina native, died Feb. 17, 2026, at the age 84 from a rare neurological disorder. A civil rights leader, Jackson was with Martin Luther King Jr. when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

He was born in Greenville in 1941. Jackson was one of eight Black students to stage a sit-in at the Greenville County Public Library in 1960. When the Greenville Eight refused to leave, they were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Remembered for great things

Jackson also ran for president twice, a part of his legacy that reminded Rev. Franklin D. Colclough, of Sumter, anyone can make great change.

“You can come from a place like South Carolina, and you can make a difference on a world stage,” Colclough said while waiting in line to pay his respects.

Colclough said he remembers seeing Jackson play football for North Carolina A&T, a rival university to Colclough’s Johnson S. Smith University.

“He was a tall, handsome guy,” Colclough said, laughing. “And he had the gift of speech, and that’s what I remember most about him. He was just a common, ordinary person.”

“(He was) just one of us, but one who allowed God to use them to do great things.”

Linda McAulay, one of the first in line on the chilly Monday morning, drove from Atlanta. Other attendees also traveled from Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

“I just really saw his greatness and how he influenced young people and was really just a magnificent guy,” McAulay said.

People line up around State House to honor Jackson

The short line slowly grew around 9 a.m., as attendees waited for Jackson’s remains to be brought to the South Carolina State House from Leevy’s Funeral Home. By 11:30 a.m., the line nearly wrapped the entire State House.

Herbert Coleman, who traveled from Virginia to pay respects to Jackson, remembers seeing the civil rights icon on TV when he was 11 or 12.

For Coleman, Jackson’s message to “keep hope alive” still rings true today.

“His message was always deep, and it meant a lot to us as a people,” Coleman said.

Gwendolyn Adams went to the same high school as Jackson in Greenville when the schools were segregated. After Sterling High School burned in 1967, she went to another public high school, but she did not learn about Jackson until later on in life.

“It’s up to us, the elders, to teach our children the history of what America has gone through,” Adams said. “It took courage to do that, speak out about what they went through. And it’s up to us as parents, grandparents, to teach the young people the history of the civil rights movement because they’re not teaching a lot of that in school.”

“Jesse Jackson, and the Kings, and all the others, they’re leaving us now,” Colclough said. “But they’ve left us a great legacy.”

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