JACKSON, ALEXANDER S. (1858-?). Alexander S. Jackson, Baptist minister, was born to Rev. Andrew and Charlotte Jackson on May 4, 1858, in Georgia. He received his education at Atlanta University, Clark Seminary, and finally the Berean School of Sacred Teaching. Upon completion of his education Jackson taught first in Georgia public schools then moved to Mississippi, where he taught and served seven years as principal of the state school in Jackson. He left education to accept the pastorate of Tulane Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. During the more than eighteen years he served there, Jackson was a leader in the reorganization of the Baptist State Convention of Louisiana. He served thirteen years as chairman and executive officer of the board of trustees of Leland University and was appointed receiver of public monies for the city of New Orleans by President Benjamin Harrison.
Jackson served as president of the National Convention of the Baptist Denomination and was one of two blacks on the advisory council of the World's Exposition held in Chicago. He was also asked by white Baptists to address their annual assemblies in Washington, Boston, and Minneapolis, on the subject of the religious needs of southern blacks. In recognition of his work Jackson received the doctor of divinity degree from the University of Kentucky at a ceremony held in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1892. In 1899 he took the pastorate of New Hope Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Within the first five years there, he managed to raise enough funds to build a new church. He also continued to be active in the Baptist convention. Jackson and his wife, Laura Augusta (Mason), his college sweetheart, had three children. After his wife's death Jackson married Odalie Alice Morse, a native of New Orleans and teacher at Leland University. They had two boys.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Josie Hall, Hall's Moral and Mental Capsule for the Economic and Domestic Life of the Negro as a Solution of the Race Problem (Dallas: R. S. Jenkins, ca. 1905).
Peggy Hardman
