Esther Cooper Jackson was not profiled in this column last week but the paper did feature her obituary, with scant mention of her devoted husband, James E. Jackson Jr.
When he died in 2007 a gaggle of daily newspapers gladly noted his passing, giving him the kind of coverage he did not receive when he was alive and an active member of the Communist Party. Unless, of course, they were reporting on his indictment for violating the Smith Act, and teaching classes on revolution and how to overthrow the government.
He was born in Richmond, Va. on Nov. 29, 1914. His father was a pharmacist and they lived in a section of the city called Jackson Ward, set aside for African Americans. Jackson was 16 in 1931 when he entered Virginia Union University. Three years later he graduated with a degree in chemistry. In 1937, he received a degree in pharmacy from Howard University. It was during his final year at Howard that he joined with others to found the Southern Negro Youth Congress .
Ten years later, after serving in the military, in 1951, when the McCarthy witch hunts were fully on the move, he was one of 21 Communist Party members indicted for their revolutionary activism. Most of them were convicted and imprisoned but Jackson and five others fled and went into hiding and did not see his family for more than five years. When at last he surrendered in 1956 he and his comrades were convicted of conspiracy.
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