Will Jesse Jackson get a statue in his SC hometown anytime soon? Here’s what the mayor says

Public art is all over Greenville.

Statues of former mayor Max Heller and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Civil rights leaders Lila Mae Brock and Pearlie Harris, statesman Joel Poinsett of poinsettia fame and former Gov. Dick Riley. There’s even a bronze boar, a replica of Florence’s iconic sculpture Il Porcellino that is so popular its nose shows the wear of all the people rubbing it for good luck.

But there is a glaring omission.

Nowhere is there a mention of perhaps Greenville’s best-known native son, Jesse Jackson, whose death Feb. 17 has renewed the call to erect a monument in his honor.

Civil rights advocate Bruce Wilson called a press conference this week to remind city leaders of the need to show Jackson’s history in his hometown, where his civil rights activism began.

Greenville Mayor Knox White spoke at Jackson’s Columbia Statehouse ceremony last week about Jackson’s role in the Greenville 8, a group of high school students who staged a read-in at the public library in 1960. Ultimately, the library opened to all races.

White said in an interview Wednesday the city is working on a statue of Jackson.

“I can’t think of a public art project that hadn’t taken multiple years,” he said, noting that he had spoken with Jackson and Jackson’s colleagues to get their input.

“Their ideas will be especially important,” White said.

Interviews with artists are underway, he said, and the location and size of the statue will be comparable to others around the city.

The dozens of works scattered around the city, from parks to Main Street to the Governor’s School, are all paid for with private donations.

“Lots of serious interest already shown,” White said.

Another effort is a plan to tell the larger civil rights story in an area where Black businesses and professional buildings were located. It’s not far from City Hall and close to a recently announced Falls Park Conference District, a $500 million conference center/hotel, retail, residential project for which the city approved buying the land this week.

The Broad Street area remains home to two Black churches, Springfield Baptist Church, the oldest historically Black Baptist church in Greenville, and John Wesley United Methodist Church, where worship services began shortly after the Civil War.

There is a two-hour walking tour of the district led by local residents.

“From the site of the largest lynching trial in U.S. history to meaningful stops at places like the Sterling High School memorial, each tour invites thoughtful conversation and reflection,” the city says on its website. “The tours go beyond dates and facts — they reveal a rich cultural tapestry that shaped Greenville’s past and the one that is informing its future.”

Jackson was born in Greenville in 1941, grew up in the Haynie Sirrine neighborhood and graduated from the celebrated and segregated Sterling High School. He was a three-letter athlete and earned a football scholarship to the University of Illinois in 1959 before transferring to the historically Black North Carolina A&T State University.

White said he hopes a monument to Jackson will tell “the unique Greenville side of his life — where his life’s calling got its start.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 6:00 AM.