Lena Terrell Jackson

Lena Terrell Jackson (December 25, 1865 – September 4, 1943) was an American educator. She taught Latin to African-American students in Nashville, Tennessee for over fifty years.

Lena Terrell Jackson, from a 1902 publication.

Early life

Lena Terrell Jackson was born in Gallatin, Tennessee, and raised by her mother Louise Jackson.[1] She attended Fisk University, graduating in the class of 1885. She earned a master's degree, and had teaching certificates allowing her to teach Latin, German and French.[2]

Career

Jackson taught Latin in segregated Nashville, Tennessee schools for over fifty years, from 1886 at Nashville's first black high school, Meigs High School,[3] until her retirement from Pearl Senior High School in 1942.[4] "I have devoted my life to endeavor to uplift my race by teaching and instructing children, realizing that by helping promote the cause of education among the colored race and the developing of the mind, the great questions that are before my people can more easily and properly be met," she wrote of her career.[2]

She also invested in real estate, funded scholarships, and wrote essays on African-American life.[5][6] She was active in the Fisk University Alumni Association, serving as an officer and on several committees.[7][8] She was also active in the Pearl High School Parent-Teacher Association,[9] and an officer in the Ladies' Aid Society of Howard Congregational Church in Nashville.[10]

Personal life

Lena Terrell Jackson died in 1943, aged 78 years.[2] Her former students named a chapter of the National Honor Society for her.[4] "She was a small woman with a big reputation," declared one reporter at the time of Pearl High School's centennial in 1998.[11]

References
  1. Untitled obituary notice, The Tennessean (February 5, 1905): 7. via Newspapers.com
  2. Louise Davis, "Popular Negro Teacher Dies but her Enthusiasm Lives On" The Tennessean (September 8, 1943): 36. Newspapers.com
  3. Samuel Momodu, "Pearl High School, 1897-1983" BlackPast.org.
  4. Sonya Yvette Ramsey, Reading, Writing, and Segregation: A Century of Black Women Teachers in Nashville (University of Illinois Press 2008): 15-16. ISBN 9780252032295
  5. Lena T. Jackson, "The Negro as a Laborer" in Daniel Wallace Culp, Twentieth Century Negro Literature (J. L. Nichols & Company 1902): 304-307.
  6. Lena T. Jackson, "History of Fisk University For Twenty-Five Years" in L. A. Scruggs, Women of Distinction: Remarkable in Works and Invincible in Character (L. A. Scruggs 1893): 135-139.
  7. Lena T. Jackson, "Minutes of College Alumni Association" The Fisk University News (November 1910): 2.
  8. Circular letter from the Fisk University Alumni Association, May 22, 1908, Fisk University Alumni Association, W. E. B. DuBois Papers, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Special Collections and University Archives.
  9. "Parent-Teacher Association to Meet" Nashville Globe (May 10, 1918): 5. via Newspapers.com
  10. "Ladies' Aid Society" Nashville Globe (March 4, 1910): 2. via Newspapers.com
  11. "Pearls of Wisdom" The Tennessean (July 26, 1998): 57. via Newspapers.com
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