Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Sherrod; August 30, 1932 – November 10, 2013), was an American author, teacher, and civil rights activist.

Early life and education

Jackson was born in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

, as the only child of John W. and Juanita Richardson Sherrod. She was a childhood friend of Coretta Scott King. She attended and graduated from Cardoza High School in Washington, D.C. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education at Alabama State College, and a Masters of Education at the University of Montevallo. She was married to Dr. Sullivan Jackson. They had one child, a girl named Jawana Virginia Jackson.

Civil rights activist

In February 1964,

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., ...

staff, and members of Congress met for strategy sessions to plan the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three Demonstration (protest), protest marches, held in 1965, along the highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery. The marches were organized by Nonviolence, nonvi ...

in Jackson's

Selma, Alabama Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. Abou ...

home. After the first attempted march on March 7, 1965 (known as Bloody Sunday), Assistant U. S. Attorney General John Doar and Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, the latter of whom was there representing President

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

, met with King and others at Jackson's house. This led to a second attempt at a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and finally a third and successful attempt. It was also in Jackson's home that Martin Luther King Jr. watched Lyndon Johnson give his Voting Rights Act Address on March 15, 1965.

Legacy

Jackson wrote a memoir, ''The House by the Side of the Road: The Selma Civil Rights Movement'', which was published in 2011 by The

University of Alabama Press The University of Alabama Press is a university press founded in 1945 and is the scholarly publishing arm of the University of Alabama. An editorial board composed of representatives from all doctoral degree granting public universities within Al ...

. A tribute to her life was delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives by Alabama representative Terri Sewell in 2013. In 2014, her house, known as the Sullivan and Richie Jean Jackson House, was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Also in 2014, Niecy Nash played Jackson in the historical drama film '' Selma'', directed by Ava DuVernay.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Richie Jean 1932 births 2013 deaths Activists for African-American civil rights Writers from Mobile, Alabama Activists from Selma, Alabama Alabama State University alumni University of Montevallo alumni African-American activists Selma to Montgomery marches African-American non-fiction writers 21st-century African-American people