Chadwick Boseman Honored by South Carolina With Half-Staff Tribute on Sunday

South Carolina will honor Chadwick Boseman by flying the flags atop the state capitol in Charleston at half-staff on Sunday, Gov. Henry McMaster announced Saturday morning. Boseman, who starred as Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, was born in Anderson, South Carolina. The actor died on Friday at 43 after a battle with colon cancer.

“To honor the life, contributions, and memory of a truly extraordinary son of South Carolina [Chadwick Boseman] – I have ordered the flags atop the Statehouse to be lowered to half-staff tomorrow, Sunday, August 30, 2020, from sunrise to sunset,” McMaster wrote on Twitter. “The two flags will be removed at sunset and will be presented to Mr. Boseman’s family at the appropriate time.” Boseman’s fans praised McMaster and thanked him for honoring the star. “Thank you [McMaster] for showing such compassion,” one person wrote. “What a kind and fitting gesture,” another added.

Boseman was born and raised in Anderson and graduated from T.L. Hanna High School in 1995. He was interested in architecture and played basketball. In his junior year, a teammate was shot and killed, a tragedy that inspired Boseman to write a play called Crossroads. At that moment, he realized he wanted to tell stories. “I just had a feeling that this was something that was calling me,” Boseman told Rolling Stone. “Suddenly, playing basketball wasn’t as important.”

In 2018, Boseman opened up about the racism he faced while growing up in South Carolina. Although life at home was happy, racism was unavoidable, he told Mr. Porter. “It’s not hard to find in South Carolina,” he said at the time. “Going to high school, I’d see Confederate flags on trucks. I know what it’s like to be a kid at an ice-cream shop when some little white kid calls you ‘n—,’ but your parents tell you to calm down because they know it could blow up. We even had trucks try to run us off the road.”

After graduation, Boseman studied at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the British American Drama Academy in London and New York’s Digital Film Academy. He made his professional acting debut in a 2003 episode of Third Watch. Following several more small roles on television, he earned his first leading role as Jackie Robinson in 2013’s 42. He also played James Brown in Get On Up and a young Thurgood Marshall in Marshall. His last film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, will be posthumously released on Netflix.