Tougaloo College (Tougaloo)

October 25th is the 100th Anniversary of my Mother's birth, and February 7th is the 100th Anniversary of my Father's birth. Clyde Cullen and Queen Esther Mace Jackson gave birth and lovingly nurtured me into the world and my three sisters, Mavis Yvonne Anderson, Claretta Jackson Sullivan, and Loretta Esther Jackson-Williams. For many years, they also nurtured hundreds of students and others in the community as public-school educators in Jasper and Sunflower Counties in Mississippi. They were graduates of a small school in Edwards, Mississippi, Southern Christian Institute, merged in 1954 with Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.

This October, Tougaloo College will celebrate its 152nd Founders' and the 120th Anniversary of the historic Woodworth Chapel, the worship and cultural center of this small liberal arts college. The Chapel, a symbolic monument of the Civil Rights Movement, witnessed the likes of Ralph Bunche, Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Robert F. Kennedy, Fannie Lou Hamer, and a multitude of other Civil Rights icons who have spoken from this pulpit and the place of our parents' homegoing services. Tougaloo College has historically produced over 40% of the African American physicians and dentists and more than 33% of Mississippi's African American attorneys and educators, including teachers, principals, school superintendents, college/ college/university faculty, and administrators.

The National Science Foundation ranks Tougaloo among the top 25 U.S. institutions whose graduates go on to their Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering disciplines and ranks it among the top 15 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in females' graduation in the physical sciences. My twin sisters are in that number, graduates of Tougaloo, one with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tennessee and the other with a Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from Boston University.

We celebrate the 152nd year of Tougaloo College and the 100th Anniversary of our parents' birth by growing the Clyde Cullen and Queen Esther Jackson Scholarship Endowment Fund. Initially for students from the Delta of Mississippi, but now any student from any part of the country with need can become a Jackson Scholar at Tougaloo College. Our goal is to have a million dollars in this fund, but we want to grow it this year by $50,000. Therefore, we invite you to make a tax-deductible gift, no matter how large or small, directly to this fund between now and the end of the year.

You may give here through GoFundMe or copy and paste the link below and give directly to the Jackson scholarship endowment at Tougaloo. You can also text CCQEJackson to 41444 to give.

Thank you!

Alvin O’Neal Jackson