Blyden Jackson (October 12, 1910 – 2000) was a Black American academic, essayist, and activist. The grandson of slaves, born in the segregated South, Jackson was the first Black American to become a full professor at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

in 1969, and "the first Black American professor at a traditionally white university in the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

." At UNC Chapel Hill, Jackson pioneered the African American Studies program and helped recruit more Black American faculty members. With his wife, he is the namesake of Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall on campus.

Early life

Blyden Jackson was born on October 12, 1910, in

Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missour ...

. His grandparents were

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. His father, George Washington Jackson, was a history teacher and his mother, Julia Reid, a librarian. He had a brother, Reid E. Jackson Sr., who later became a professor at

Morgan State University Morgan State University (Morgan State or MSU) is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the largest of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In 1867, the university, then known ...

. He grew up in segregated

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

. Jackson graduated from

Wilberforce University Wilberforce University is a private historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. It participates in t ...

in 1930. He attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

on a Rosenwald Scholarship, where he earned a master's degree in 1938 and a PhD in 1952.

Career

Jackson taught at Madison Jr. High School in Kentucky from 1934 to 1945. He joined

Fisk University Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, Fisk was the first Africa ...

, a historically black college, as an assistant professor of English in 1945, and left as a tenured associate professor in 1954. He was a full professor of English at

Southern University Southern University and A&M College (Southern University, Southern, SUBR or SU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is the largest historically black college or university (HBCU) in Louisiana, a ...

, another historically black college, from 1954 to 1956, and he later became the dean of its Graduate School. Jackson joined the English department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969, where he was the first African-American faculty member to become a full professor. He was also "the first African American professor at a traditionally white university in the

." He was a professor until 1973, when he became an administrator, serving as special assistant to the Dean of the Graduate School until 1981, and Associate Dean until 1983. He pioneered the African-American Studies program at UNC Chapel Hill, where he also served on a committee to hire more African-Americans as faculty. Jackson was the author of several books about

African-American literature African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African-A ...

, including one co-authored with

Louis D. Rubin Jr. Louis Decimus Rubin Jr. (November 19, 1923 – November 16, 2013) was a noted American literary scholar and critic, writing teacher, publisher, and writer. He is credited with helping to establish Southern literature as a recognized area of stud ...

He wrote about the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...

, including

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

Ralph Ellison Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...

and Richard Wright.

Personal life and death

Jackson was married to Roberta Jackson, an associate professor of education at UNC Chapel Hill who predeceased him in 1999. The Blyden and Roberta Jackson Graduate Fellowship Fund at UNC Chapel Hill was established in 1989. The Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall, which houses the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, was named for them in 1992. Jackson died in 2000, at the age of 89.

Selected works

Literary criticism

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Blyden 1910 births 2000 deaths People from Paducah, Kentucky Wilberforce University alumni University of Michigan alumni Fisk University faculty Southern University faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Tennessee African-American novelists 20th-century African-American writers African-American male writers