Reggie McKnight came with money for SC and the Phillis Wheatley Community Center
- Charles Reams
- May 28
- 3 min read
A Greenville native, Reginald “Reggie” McKnight, Google’s head of global social impact, announced a $250,000 grant to the Phillis Wheatley Center, plus an undisclosed amount for a new Randy Jackson scholarship.
McKnight also said that Google is investing $3.3 billion in South Carolina to expand its data center infrastructure. This includes two new data center campuses in Dorchester County and expanding an existing campus in Berkeley County. The project will create hundreds of new jobs and support Google's cloud services and AI infrastructure. “That takes a lot of energy,” he said.
Jackson is the outgoing executive director for the Phillis Wheatley Center. When he took over the center oversight in 2019, water poured down gaping holes in the roof, and the place was in shambles.
The United Way gave the Center an emergency grant, and Greenville County forked over $2 million for thoroughgoing repair of the dilapidated building.
Restoration began in earnest with a new roof, flooring, air-conditioning, and everything else. Other donors stepped in and programs were added, a staff was put in place, and the Center was back in business, helping people in need.
Wednesday was Donor Appreciation Day. A hot meal of shrimp and grits, tacos with all the trimming of ground beef, sauté unions, peppers and assorted other vegetables, drinks, and various kinds of desserts. All this food was prepared at the Wheatley kitchen dubbed Justshon. The restaurant is run by Chef Shon, his wife, and family.
Ray Lattimore mused from the platform that he never had such entrées when he was a youth in the neighborhood. That’s a clear sign of advanced progress for the center.
Ted Kelly, chairman of the center’s board, announced the new executive director. Mae D. Jones has headed a number of major black organizations in Atlanta. Like other speakers on the program, she had come full circle by returning to the Greenville Phillis Wheatley Center, where she was a happy participant as a child. She then lived down the block from the center.
Kelly said the search committee was impressed by her academic accomplishments, like her PhD. MBA, and FLMI, but above all else, she asked the most probing questions to grasp fully the scope and magnitude of her new duties here.
Many other luminaries, raised in the shadow of centers as child participants, returned as outstanding members of the community and took a victory lap, not to soak of the adoration of the crowd, but to demonstrate that current children will surely follow this model and take the reins of leadership of the center in the future.
The Mcknight family shines brightly
Lela B. McKnight is a lifelong educator in Greenville. She has taught in a number of schools, including the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities and the Phillis Wheatley Community Center. No wonder that many of her children and other relatives have strongly supported the center over the decades.
In fact, her son, Reggie McKnight, now a lawyer, heads the Google Global Impact Program. He spoke earlier on the program.
Other important speakers include Jonathan Davis, Pastor of the Resurrection Presbyterian Church, Megan Barp, and Dennis Braasch, owner and Chairman of Industrial Project Innovations, LLC.
