Jackson, Luther Porter

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Jackson, Luther Porter

1892
April 20, 1950

Luther Porter Jackson, an educator, civic leader, and historian, was born to the former slaves Edward and Delilah Jackson in Lexington, Kentucky, sometime in 1892. He graduated from Chandler Normal School in 1910 and attended Fisk University, where he received his B.A. in 1914 and his M.A. in 1916. Years later, in 1937, he received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago.

Jackson's teaching career began in South Carolina, where he taught at the Voorhees Industrial School from 1915 to 1918. He then taught at the Topeka Industrial Institute until 1920. In 1922 he joined the staff of the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in Petersburg (renamed Virginia State College in 1930), and was named associate professor of history in 1925. In 1929 he was promoted to full professor and chair of the History and Social Science Department, a position he held for the rest of his life.

Jackson became an expert on blacks in Virginia, scrupulously studying courthouse documents. In 1942 he published Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860. He went on to publish numerous scholarly works, including Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the Revolutionary War (1944) and Negro Office Holders in Virginia, 1860–1895 (1945).

Jackson was a vocal advocate for black suffrage, and beginning in 1942 he published The Voting Status of Negroes in Virginia, a pamphlet intended to encourage African Americans to vote. He also founded the Petersburg League of Negro Voters, which later became the Virginia Voters League. In 1947 the Southern Regional Council commissioned Jackson to study black voting in the South, the results of which were published in a pamphlet, Race and Suffrage in the South Since 1940 (1948).

Jackson was very involved with the Petersburg Negro Business Association, which eventually became the Virginia Trade Association. He also was an accomplished musician—he played the cornet—and founded the Petersburg Community Chorus, which he directed in yearly concerts from 1933 to 1941.

Jackson was an active participant in Carter G. Woodson's Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. He was also very active in fund-raising for the NAACP. In 1948 his efforts resulted in an award from the Virginia NAACP "for unselfish and devoted services in enhancing the voting status of Negroes." Jackson was a driven man who, in addition to his other activities, served on numerous boards and councils and often worked late into the night. He died of a heart attack in 1950. Luther Jackson High School was dedicated in his memory on April 17, 1955, in Merrifield, Virginia.