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James Edward Jackson Jr. (November 29, 1914-September 6, 2007) was a civil rights activist, founder of the Southern Negro Youth Congress and former official of the American Communist Party. Following the overturn of his conviction, he was the editor of The Worker, the successor to The Daily Worker.

Early life

Jackson was born on November 29, 1914 in Jackson Ward to James Jackson, Richmond's second black pharmacist and Clara Kersey, a graduate of Howard University who studied in the Conservatory of Music. He had two sisters, Alice and Clara. His eldest sister, Alice Jackson Stuart, was the first black person to the University of Virginia and "catalyst" for the Dovell Act.

At 12, he organized the first black troop to be admitted to the Boy Scouts of America in Virginia. In 1930, at 16 years old, Jackson attended Virginia Union University and majored in chemistry. He later attended Howard University, where he started the Southern Negro Youth Congress in his senior year and graduated with a pharmacy degree in 1937.

After graduating from Howard, Jackson took a position at Fisk University and worked on Gunnar Myrdal's book, An American Dilemma. In 1940, he met his wife, Esther Cooper Jackson at Frisk and they married in 1941.

In 1943, he was drafted and served in an all black unit as an engineer battalion in Burma. Upon returning from World War II, they moved to Detroit, where they lived with Coleman Young.

Jackson was one of 21 defendants indicted in 1951 under the Smith Act for conspiracy and teaching classes on violent revolution. As a result, he and 5 others went into hiding until 1956, when he surrendered and was charged with conspiracy. In 1958, their convictions were overturned based on a 1957 ruling that "mere teaching or advocacy of an overthrow of the government did not constitute a call to action" and that the Smith Act "requires more than the teaching of an abstract doctrine that the government should be overthrown by force and violence". The appeals court ruled that the government had "failed to to prove that the defendants had urged people to do something rather than believe in something."

In 1960, The Hopewell News alleged that Jackson was also the founder of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and the Southern Conference Educational Fund, a "camouflaged, subversive organization"

In 1974, hundreds of activists gathered to celebrate Jackson's 60th birthday in New York City, including activist Pete Seeger who also performed for the crowd.