Luther Porter Jackson—Highlighting Black History

The contributions of African Americans to the politics, life, and culture of the Commonwealth of Virginia have often been ignored in traditional histories and textbooks. Historian Luther Porter Jackson (1892–1950), however, researched and wrote numerous books, newspaper columns, and articles detailing what could be called a “hidden” history of Black Virginians. Beginning in the 1920s, he promoted the annual Negro History Week in Virginia, the precursor to today's Black History Month. For years, scholars and historians have turned to Jackson’s work for reliable and well-documented information that challenged racist stereotypes about Black Virginians in American history.

A history professor and chair of the History Department at Virginia State University, Jackson had degrees from Fisk University, Columbia University, and a doctorate from the University of Chicago. Throughout his career he made extensive use of primary source materials in local courthouses and in state and national archives, including birth, marriage, and death records, tax records, property deeds, legal and court records, military records, and other government documents. He also researched in newspapers and family papers, and he interviewed family descendants to carefully document the life and work of Black Virginians. Some of his most significant works include:

• Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia 1830–1860 (1942), which showed the rise of property ownership among Virginia’s free Black men and women before the Civil War.
• Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the American Revolution (1944), which documented the service almost 200 Black Virginians who served in the army and navy during the Revolutionary War.
• Negro Office-Holders in Virginia 1865–1895 (1945, 1946), which provided biographical information about the Black men who served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868, as delegates and senators in the General Assembly from 1869 to 1891, and some local office holders of the late-19th century. For many years Jackson's work was often the only source documenting their election to public office.

Beyond his teaching and research, Luther P. Jackson was active in advancing civil rights. He wrote a weekly newspaper column for the Norfolk Journal and Guide during the 1940s on “Rights and Duties In a Democracy.” In it, he regularly advocated registering to vote and voting as well as using the courts to fight segregation laws. He also shared inspirational examples of Black Virginians in history. In this column, published on August 21, 1943, Jackson describes the participation of Black soldiers and sailors in the American Revolution, including William Flora, at the Battle of Great Bridge, and James Lafayette, who spied on the British at Yorktown. He wanted his readers to understand that the Black Virginians then serving in Europe and the Pacific during World War II were part of a long tradition of fighting "for liberty and democracy" in American history.

Citation: Luther P. Jackson, Virginia Negro Solders and Seamen in the American Revolution," Norfolk Journal and Guide, 21 August 1943.

Related Entry: Petition of James Lafayette, New Kent County, 1786.

VS.1, VS.5, VUS.1, VUS.8

Preview Activity

Think about it: You are a member of numerous communities in your school, neighborhood, with your friends, relatives, and in your social media connections and online groups. Think about “hidden histories” in any of those communities; what are they and what kind of research and/or facts would you like to be publicized?

Post Activities

Think about it: L. P. Jackson wrote about the service of Black Virginians during the American Revolution and copies of Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen of the American Revolution were sent to African American teachers in Virginia's public schools. Why might L. P. Jackson have done this? Consider the time period when the book was published.

Look at it: Examining the titles of L. P. Jackson’s books, what topic or topics might interest you as a project for this year’s Black History month? Briefly explain or add your own topic or topics.

Analyze: The famed African American historian G. Carter Woodson was a contemporary of Luther Porter Jackson and is today well known as a researcher and activist. Briefly research Woodson’s life and work (see his online biography at Encyclopedia Virginia): what do you see as connections to or commonalities with Jackson?