Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Luther P. Jackson Oil Painting, Accession #11085, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The majority of Jackson's papers are housed at Virginia State's Special Collections/University Archives, Johnston Memorial Library; others are held under accession number 3615, Papers of Wilbur Earnest MacClenny, Special Collections Department, Alderman Library, University of Virginia. The Jackson portrait was placed on deposit in the Library on March 17, 1993 by Mr. M. Rick Turner, dean of the Office of Afro- American Affairs. It is not to be removed from the Special Collections Department without the permission of the Office of African-American Affairs.

Biographical/Historical Information

Luther P. Jackson was born July 11, 1892, in Lexington, Kentucky, one of 12 children of a dairyman, Edward, and a schoolteacher, Delilah. He earned his bachelor of arts degree at Fisk University in 1914 and a master of arts degree at Columbia University in 1917. He taught at colleges in South Carolina and Kansas, and in 1922 joined the faculty at Virginia State College (now University) and eventually became a full professor and chairman of its history department. During that same year he married Johnnella Frazer, a native of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and they ultimately had four children: Luther, Jr., Edward, John, and Laura.

Long before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1949, Dr. Jackson had dedicated his life to the research and writing of African-American history and the securing of civil rights for blacks, especially the right to vote. He published numerous articles and specialized in the history of blacks in Virginia; his major monographs were Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830-1860 (1942), Virginia Negro Soldiers and Sailors In The Revolutionary War (1944) and, Negro Office-Holders in Virginia 1865-1895 (1945).

Jackson was widely respected as an historian and crusader for civic freedom. James H. Brewer, another African-American historian who taught at Virginia State, wrote an acclamatory preface for the 1969 reprint of Jackson's Free Negro Labor: "In this book, my former history professor is content to be a scholar. His style is simple, and his tone is measured. He has presented the facts as they are, believing that facts properly set forth will speak for themselves."

Jackson chaired the Virginia chapter of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History); was an editor of The Journal of Negro History; secretary of the all-black State Teacher's Association; a founder of the Petersburg Negro Business Association; founder of the Virginia Voters League; wrote a weekly column in the Norfolk Journal and Guide; and published annual reports the voting status of black Virginians from 1941 until his death. This community activist and historian died on April 13, 1950. His funeral was held at Virginia State College. At the time of his death he was editing a manuscript later published as Memoirs of A Monticello Slave, the reminiscences of Isaac Jefferson, a slave of Thomas Jefferson.

In October 1977, the University of Virginia dedicated the Luther P. Jackson House (#4 Dawson's Row) as the home for its Office of Afro-American Affairs (OAAA), the first university building named in honor of a black Virginian. His son, Luther P. Jackson, Jr., a professor of journalism at Columbia University, was the guest speaker. As part of ceremonies of the tenth anniversary of its founding, the Jackson House was rededicated in October 1987 after renovations the previous summer. The keynote speaker was Dr. Harold K. Braxton, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Coordinator of Religious Studies at Virginia State University and a University of Virginia alumnus.

Scope and Content Information

This item is a 1978 oil painting of Dr. Luther Porter Jackson (1892-1950), a professor of history at Virginia State College and civil rights activist. The artist is Professor Charles R. Flynn, Jr., of Virginia State; the painting, measuring 119 x 92 centimeters in its frame (99.5 x 74 exclusive of frame), was presented to the Luther P. Jackson House, Office of Afro-American Affairs, University of Virginia, by the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and bears a small brass plate: "Bro. Luther P. Jackson/Donated by Omega Psi Phi."