Jacqueline Jackson

Jacqueline Lavinia "Jackie" Jackson (née Davis, later Brown, born March 7, 1944) is an American author and peace activist. She wrote Loving You, Thinking of You, Don't Forget to Pray, a compilation of letters she had sent to her son Jesse Jackson Jr. while the latter was incarcerated. Married to Jesse Jackson since 1962, she has been described by The Los Angeles Times as "elusive, private and largely unknown to the public." Early life Jackson was born Jacqueline Lavinia Davis on March 7, 1944 in Fort Pierce, Florida, to Gertrude "Gertie" Davis (March 7, 1927 – July 13, 2017), an "unwed migrant worker who earned 15 cents an hour picking beans." Jackson never saw her father. Her mother married Navy Chief Petty Officer Julius Frances Brown Sr. when Jackson was five, and the family relocated to Newport News, Virginia. In an interview Jackson stated she believed her mother to be "too strict" when she was a child. She considered becoming a nun when she was a teenager, but eventually decided not to pursue that path. She has four half-siblings through her mother. According to biographer Marshall Frady's book Jesse, Jackson's maternal grandmother was a prostitute. Jackson attended Huntington High School in West Virginia before entering North Carolina A&T State University, then known as the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. While a student at A&T, she was a civil rights protester. In an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service, she recounted writing a persuasive paper on how China should get a seat in the United Nations. Jackson ended up dropping out of A&T when her first child, Santita, was born. Career