Long-time bookseller Rhett Jackson, who opened the Happy Bookseller in Columbia, S.C., with his wife, Betty, in 1975, died at Summit Hills Skilled Nursing Facility in Spartanburg on May 26. He was 91.
Jackson was elected president of the American Booksellers Association and was one of the founding members of the American Booksellers for Free Expression. In 2006, he received the ABA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jackson was known as a civil rights leader and devout Methodist and chaired the South Carolina Methodist Merger Conference (formed to merge black and white conferences). He was a member and later the chairman of the board of trustees of Claflin College and in 1977 was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters there.
For more than 20 years, Jackson served on the South Carolina State Board of Pardons and Parole. He received numerous awards, including the Order of the Palmetto and Doctor of Humane Letter degrees from both Wiley College in Marshall, Tex., and Columbia College in Columbia, S.C. His papers are at the Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina.
Services will be held at 2 o’clock on Saturday, June 4, at Trenholm Road United Methodist Church in Columbia, S.C., with a reception immediately following. Prior to the service a private burial will be held at the church for the family. Donations may be made to the Alston Wilkes Society, 3510 Medical Drive, Columbia, S.C. 29203 or to the Mission Program of Trenholm Road United Methodist Church, 3401 Trenholm Road, Columbia, S.C. 29204.
