
He also received the Order of the Palmetto in 2019. He had also helped to create an arts festival in Oklahoma years earlier.Īrts advocacy is just one facet of what Horowitz has brought to his adopted hometown, and it’s one of the reasons he received the Community Foundation of Greenville’s 2022 Visionary Leadership Award. In the past two decades, Artisphere has become a staple of the Greenville event calendar. The festival was created by Henry Horowitz, who at the time was board chairman of Metropolitan Arts Council. Its success is undeniable, as the event brings tens of thousands of people to downtown Greenville every spring. In 2023, Artisphere, the festival that celebrates arts and culture, will mark 20th anniversary of its founding. Mayor Knox White called Duckett “the heart and soul of Unity Park,” and a plaza at the park was named in her honor.ĭuckett, who worked for the South Carolina Department of Corrections for 22 years, has served on many boards and committees in Greenville, including Brockwood Senior Housing and the AJ Whittenberg School of Engineering Task Force. Unity Park, a 60-acre green space and community hub near downtown Greenville, was completed in 2022, and Duckett was given much of the credit for its creation. Her advocacy and determination have been recognized in recent years. I remember hearing the saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ Southernside was that village.”

In her view, Duckett told The Greenville News in a 2015 interview, “We were a family. It started when she was a teenager, distributing fliers about neighborhood events for longtime activist Lila Mae Brock. Over the years, Duckett has spent countless hours working for the neighborhood’s benefit, picking up litter, helping to build schools, and advocating for help for Southernside when needed.īut for Duckett, community involvement has been a lifelong passion. Mary Duckett has lived in the Southernside community near downtown Greenville since the 1950s, and she became an advocate and community leader soon after arriving.
