Julia Jackson was a

Louisiana Voodoo Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, was an African diasporic religion that existed in Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to ...

practitioner from

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. Alongside Lala, she was an important voodoo queen of the 1940s. She sold

gris-gris ''Gris-Gris'' (stylized as GRIS-gris, , named for a kind of talisman) is the debut album by American musician Dr. John ( Mac Rebennack). Produced by Harold Battiste, it was released on Atco Records in 1968. The album introduced Rebennack's Dr. ...

, charms, and potions. She made her own amulets, talismans, and ingredients. Materials she used in her concoctions included nails, earthworms, coffee grounds, chicken feathers, red pepper, and

beef tongue Beef tongue (also known as neat's tongue or ox tongue) is a cut of beef made of the tongue of a cow. It can be boiled, pickled, roasted or braised in sauce. It is found in many national cuisines, and is used for taco fillings in Mexico and for o ...

. The instructions for her "To Kill Someone: Formula I" were to kill a rattlesnake and hang it out to dry in the sun. Then the person's name was written on a piece of paper and placed in the snake's mouth. Jackson was feared by the brothel madams of Storyville for her "sealing power". By 1946, Jackson had purchased half of the property on her block. She also owned a car and traveled extensively in the country. New Orleans musician

Dr. John Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, R&B, soul and funk. Active as a session mus ...

mentioned Jackson in his song "Jump Sturdy" on his 1968 album ''

Gris-Gris ''Gris-Gris'' (stylized as GRIS-gris, , named for a kind of talisman) is the debut album by American musician Dr. John ( Mac Rebennack). Produced by Harold Battiste, it was released on Atco Records in 1968. The album introduced Rebennack's Dr. ...

''. In the song he says that Jump Sturdy got tangled up with Queen Julia Jackson and died after Jackson "dropped a Zozo la Brique". Jackson confronted him backstage in 1972 and told him that what he had said about her in his song was "a goddamned lie." Literary figure

Ishmael Reed Ishmael Scott Reed (born February 22, 1938) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his Satire, satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known wor ...

recognized Jackson as a theoretician of Neo-Hoodoo for her role in stripping Voodoo of its oppressive Catholic influences. Occultist

Black Herman Benjamin Rucker (1892 – April 15, 1934) was an American stage magician, better known by his stage name Black Herman. He was the most prominent African-American magician of his time. He appears as a major character in Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel ...

notes that Hoodoo practitioners in North America had to create and refashion

loa , also called loa, are spirits in the African diaspora religions, African diasporic religion of Haitian Vodou and Dominican Vudú. They have also been incorporated into some revivalist forms of Louisiana Voodoo. Many of the lwa derive their iden ...

s, citing Jackson's theories as an example.

References

Further reading