Flags at the California State Capitol and state buildings across the state flew at half-staff this week to honor civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the flags lowered ahead of Jackson’s funeral services in Chicago, according to a statement from the governor’s office. The flags will remain at half-staff until sunset Saturday, when Jackson is scheduled to be laid to rest.
“As we pay our final respects to Reverend Jesse Jackson before he is laid to rest this weekend, I am ordering flags to be flown at half-staff in his honor,” Newsom said. “Reverend Jackson paved the righteous path that we now must walk to fulfill his vision of a better world, and his lifetime of lessons and wisdom leaves us well-prepared to do so.”
Jackson died Feb. 17 at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and speech in his later years. A protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson spent decades advocating for voting rights, economic opportunity and racial justice, and he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.
Thousands gathered Friday in Chicago for a public memorial honoring Jackson’s life and legacy. Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were among the speakers, and former Vice President Kamala Harris and other political and cultural leaders attended the service.
Before the Chicago events, Jackson lay in state at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, where thousands lined up to pay their respects. He became only the second Black person to lie in state there.
Jackson’s activism also left a mark in California.
In a statement issued after his death, Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said the minister stood with farmworkers in the Central Valley, marched for racial and economic justice in Los Angeles and Oakland, and spoke to students across the state.
“Rev. Jackson’s legacy is one of fellowship, reminding us that we must ‘turn to each other, not on each other,'” the governor said in that earlier statement.
This article originally published at California flags are flying at half-staff this week. Here’s why.