Irene Dobbs Jackson

Irene née Dobbs Jackson was a professor of French at Spelman College and a civil rights activist who helped desegregate Atlanta's public libraries, where African American patrons were only allowed to read books in the basement. Maynard Jackson was her son.[1] She went by "Renie".

She was from Atlanta's prominent Dobbs family.[2] John Wesley Dobbs was her father.[3] She had five sisters including opera singer Mattiwilda Dobbs and activist and civic leader Josephine Dobbs Clement.

She was valedictorian of her class at Spelman and studied French.[2] She corresponded with Martin Luther King Jr. while studying in France.[2] She earned a doctorate at the University of Toulouse in France.[4]

African Americans were only allowed to use a segregated branch library. Jackson pressed for a library card at the main branch and received one.[5] She taught at Spelman for almost 50 years.[4]

She, like her mother, had six children. The Georgia House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating her after her death in 1999.[4]

In 2020, the redevelopment of the home she had with her husband was targeted for redevelopment as affordable housing for Atlanta University graduate students and researchers.[6]

She was interviewed for the Civil Rights History Project.[7]

References

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