Gil Scott-Heron "Godfather of Rap"

The person he credited for Jackson was his grandmother, Lily Scott, who raised him after his mother sent him south as a small child. Historian Claudrena Harold describes her as a woman who stood up to Jim Crow, and Scott-Heron said he learned about inequality on her front porch at night, listening to neighbors talk over what had to change. The two other Black children who integrated Tigrett with him in 1962 were Madeline Walker and Gillard Glover. When his grandmother died, he went north to his mother in the Bronx.

What the plaque says

Gil Scott-Heron "Godfather of Rap" Born in Chicago in 1949, Gil Scott-Heron moved to Jackson in 1950, which remained his home until he was thirteen years old. In 1962, he was one of three African Americans to desegregate Tigrett Junior High School. That same year, he moved to New York City, developed into a world-renowned poet and musician with such hits as "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," "The Bottle" and "Winter in American." In 1980, he and Stevie Wonder laid the foundation for the Martin Luther King National Holiday. Gil Scott-Heron died May 27, 2011 in New York City. In 2012, Scott-Heron received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 as a recipient of the Early Influence Award.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park — 11 mi
  The largest group of Middle Woodland mounds in the United States, about two thousand years old, with the second tallest mound in the country, a museum and paved trails.
• Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School — 25 mi
  The one-room Black school Tina Turner attended in Nutbush, moved to Brownsville in 2012 and opened as a museum in 2014 beside Sleepy John Estes's house.

More markers nearby

• Occupation of Jackson — steps away
• 61st US Colored Infantry Regiment — steps away
• Monroe Dunaway Anderson / Anderson, Clayton & Company — 0.2 mi
• Mother Liberty CME Church — 0.4 mi