Jackson, Joseph Harrison

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Jackson, Joseph Harrison

September 11, 1900
August 18, 1990

The minister Joseph H. Jackson was born in Jamestown, Mississippi, and received a B.A. from Jackson College in Jackson, Mississippi and a bachelor of divinity degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. He later received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Jackson College. From 1922 to 1941, he served as a minister in churches in Mississippi, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. In 1934 he became corresponding secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention (NBC) and vice president of the World Baptist Alliance. In 1941 he became pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, perhaps the largest Baptist church in the country.

In 1953 Jackson was elected president of the National Baptist Convention, the country's largest black religious group, with five million members. He campaigned as a reformer, pledging to eliminate presidential self-succession. Ironically, he remained president for twenty-nine years, a tenure marked by controversy over his opposition to civil rights activism and his autocratic leadership.

Although Jackson supported legal efforts in support of civil rights, he strongly believed that blacks should concentrate on "self-development" through advancing economic opportunity, and that civil disobedience would inflame racial differences. In January 1961 he denounced the sit-in movement and referred to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a "hoodlum." In 1963 he denounced the planned March on Washington as "dangerous and unwarranted." Attempting to speak at a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rally that year, he was booed off the stage. Jackson actively pursued an African uplift program. In 1961 he developed a land investment program through which Baptists used 100,000 acres in Liberia to encourage settlement and raise money for missionaries. For his efforts, Jackson was made a Royal Knight of the Republic of Liberia, and received an honorary degree from Bishop College in Monrovia. He also led the Baptists to create Freedom Farm, a model farming community in Somerville, Tennessee.

Jackson faced several challenges to his leadership of the NBC. In 1957, despite his repeated promises to resign, he had his supporters suspend the convention's rules and was reelected by a voice vote. Angered opponents brought suit against the NBC board, but to no avail.

In 1960, at the NBC convention in Philadelphia, civil rights advocates led by Dr. King supported the Rev. Gardner Taylor for president. When Jackson's supporters attempted to reelect him by a voice vote, pandemonium broke out and Jackson left the hall. Taylor won a roll call vote, and the two factions brought injunctions against each other. Jackson retained the support of the NBC board and retained his presidency. At the 1961 NBC convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Jackson was reelected in a disputed vote that resulted in a riot. Banished from the NBC, King and Taylor formed the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a group committed to social action.

As president of the NBC, Jackson toured widely, visiting Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Russia. In 1962 he attended the Second Vatican Council in Rome and had a private meeting with Pope John XXIII. He wrote several books, including Stars in the Night (1950), The Eternal Flame (1956), Many but One: The Ecumenics of Charity (1964), and Unholy Shadows and Freedom's Holy Light (1967), as well as A Story of Christian Activism: The History of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. (1980). In 1973 the NBC's library in Chicago was named for him. In 1982 Jackson retired, and in 1989, he established a $100,000 scholarship fund at Howard University.