Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Photographs Collection, 1910-1995

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Photographs Collection, 1910-1995

1910-1995

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/photos_221/photos_221.html

James E. Jackson (1914-2007) and Esther Cooper Jackson (1917- ) are African-American communists and civil rights activists, best known for their role in founding and leading the Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-1948). James Jackson was head of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) Louisiana state organization in 1946, and was a Party organizer in the automobile industry in Detroit from 1947 to 1950. He then moved to New York, becoming the Southern Director for the Communist Party. In 1951 he was indicted under the Smith Act (charged with advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government), and became a fugitive until 1955. He later served as the CPUSA's Educational Director and International Affairs Secretary, retiring in 1991. Esther Cooper Jackson served as the Executive Secretary of the Southern Negro Youth Congress from 1942-1946 and co-founded and served as the managing editor from 1961-86 of Freedomways, the influential African-American political and cultural quarterly. The collection consists of ca. 1,350 items (mainly black and white photographs), the largest part of which documents or derives from the international travels of the Jacksons—primarily James Jackson's travels as a representative of the CPUSA from the1950s through the 1980s; also included are a small number of family photographs and images documenting political and organizational activities of the Jacksons from 1930s through the 1950s and some images from Freedomways, mostly documenting cultural events sponsored by the magazine. Individuals represented include CPUSA leaders and activists, as well as leaders of Communist nations.

4 boxes

eng, Latn

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6331212

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Related Entities

There are 31 Entities related to this resource.

Belafonte, Harry, 1927-2023

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q63gmd (person)

Born to immigrant parents in Harlem on March 1, 1927, Harry Belafonte spent much of his youth in his mother's home country of Jamaica. Though difficult, life in Jamaica was full of rich cultural experiences that influenced Belafonte's art. At the beginning of World War II, Belafonte returned to Harlem with his mother and brother. He had trouble integrating into the new environment and later dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Navy. After Belafonte was honorably discharged, he went bac...

Davis, Angela Y. (Angela Yvonne), 1944-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s0051g (person)

Activist, author, and professor, Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 26, 1944, the daughter of two teachers. Active at an early age in the Black Panthers and the Communist Party, Davis also formed an interracial study group and volunteered for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while still in high school. At fifteen, after earning a scholarship, Davis traveled to New York to complete high school. In 1960, Davis traveled to Germany to study for two years, and then ...

Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6k46k6g (person)

Pete Seeger (1919-2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. As a member of the Weavers, Seeger was often heard on the radio in the early 1950s, most notably on their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene". In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes. A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include "Where Have ...

Communist Party of the United States of America

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r31rnp (corporateBody)

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), a Marxist-Leninist party aligned with the Soviet Union, was founded in 1919 in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution by the left wing members of the Socialist Party USA. These split into two groups, with each holding founding conventions in Chicago in September 1919: one which established the Communist Labor Party, and a second which established the Communist Party of America. In a 1920 Joint Unity Convention, a minority faction of t...

Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66793pq (person)

Lyndon Baines Johnson, also known as LBJ, was born on August 27, 1908 at Stonewall, Texas. He was the first child of Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines Johnson, and had three sisters and a brother: Rebekah, Josefa, Sam Houston, and Lucia. In 1913, the Johnson family moved to nearby Johnson City, named for Lyndon''s forebears, and Lyndon entered first grade. On May 24, 1924 he graduated from Johnson City High School. He decided to forego higher education and moved to California with a few ...

Jackson, James E., 1914-2007

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r21phq (person)

A former editor of the Daily Worker and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, U.S.A., James E. Jackson was educated at Howard University, Goddard College and Moscow University. He contributed many theoretical articles to the literature of the communist world, especially on issues of labor, the civil rights movement and the national question as it relates to Blacks in the United States. From the description of James E. Jackson writings, 1935-1985. (New York Public Lib...

Baez, Joan, 1941-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67x72b8 (person)

Joan Baez (b. Jan. 9, 1941) is a singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. She got her start during the 1959 Newport Folk Festival and is well known for her performance of "We Shall Overcome" at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom....

Stratton, Richard Allen

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m203f5 (person)

Hall, Gus

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pq1cnq (person)

Mitchell, Bessie.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hg3tf6 (person)

Nguyen, Thi Binh, 1927-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61t2nts (person)

Southern Negro Youth Congress

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gf5k2g (corporateBody)

Mitchell, Charlene, 1930-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6210212 (person)

Brezhnev, Leonid Il'ich, 1906-1982

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66t21bm (person)

Fedossejew, P. N.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68r1xk2 (person)

Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 1890-1964

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wn23gq (person)

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was an agitator and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a Communist Party (CP) official. Flynn was an organizer in major strikes in Lawrence, Massachusetts and Paterson and Passaic, New Jersey. She saw labor court trials as important extensions of organizing, and participated in trials in Missoula, Montana (1908), and Spokane, Washington (1909-1910). As part of her defense work she created the Workers’ Defense League, an organization to fight for th...

Taylor, Glen H. (Glen Hearst), 1904-1984

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64b311h (person)

Glen H. Taylor (1904-1984) served as Democratic U.S. senator from Idaho, 1945-1951. From the description of Photographs, 1950. (Idaho State Historical Society Library & Archives). WorldCat record id: 42927959 ...

Hudson, Hosea

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tm7wkh (person)

Hosea Hudson was active as a leading militant African American trade unionist and member of the Communist Party from 1931 to 1948, during which time he held prominent positions in both the Party and the United Steel Workers of America. Born the son of sharecroppers in Georgia in 1898, Hudson received little formal education. In his youth and during the early 1920's, he worked as a sharecropper first with his grandmother and later with his first wife. He become an iron mo...

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gk06z2 (person)

W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Educated at Fisk University, he did graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. Du Bois became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Due to his contributions in the African-American community he was seen as a member of a Black elite that supported some aspects ...

Castro, Fidel, 1926-2016

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hb9v88 (person)

Fidel Castro (b. August 13, 1926, Birán, Cuba–d. November 25, 2016, Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business were nationalized and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society. The son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imper...

Jackson, Esther Cooper, 1917-2022

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wt16v7 (person)

Esther Cooper Jackson (born August 21, 1917 in Arlington, Virginia - died August 23, 2022) was an African-American civil rights activist, former social worker and, along with Shirley Graham Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edward Strong, and Louis E. Burnham, was one of the founding editors of the magazine Freedomways, a theoretical, political and literary journal published from 1961 to 1985. She was married to James E. Jackson (1914–2007), an influential labor activist. The couple also known for thei...

De Lavallade, Carmen, 1931-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63r0rnz (person)

Dance luminary Carmen De Lavallade was born on March 6, 1931, to Grace Grenot and Leo Paul De Lavallade in Los Angeles, California. There, her aunt, Adele De Lavallade, owned the Hugh Gordon Book Shop, one of the first African American history bookshops on Central Avenue. Her cousin, Janet Collins, was the first African American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. De Lavallade discovered her talent for dance early. In 1945, she began studying ballet with Melissa Blake, an...

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66t1cct (person)

Premier of the Soviet Union. From the description of Reminiscences of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev : oral history, 1967-71. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309743617 ...

Stevens, Hope.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69j1jhv (person)

Dennis, Eugene, 1905-1961

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6h71tzr (person)

Freedomways Associates

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j739m4 (corporateBody)

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, 1931-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60p14b7 (person)

General secretary, Kommunisticheskai︠a︡ partii︠a︡ Sovetskogo Soi︠u︡za, 1985-1991; president of the Soviet Union, 1990-1991. From the description of Dialog o perestroĭke, "prazhskoĭ vesne" i sot︠s︡ializme : typescript, 1994 / Mikhail Gorbachev, Zdenek Mlynarzh. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122500680 Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev (1931-) was leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1985 to 1991. Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931, in Privolnoe, Russia,...

Hồ, Chí Minh, 1890-1969

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tx3jbt (person)

Makeba, Miriam, 1932-2008

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cz7wgk (person)

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer and civil rights activist known for becoming the first African artist to globally popularize African music. Makeba was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on March 4, 1932. Her professional career began when she was featured in the South African jazz group the Manhattan Brothers in the 1950s and made her U.S. debut on November 1, 1959 on The Steve Allen Show. While traveling to London she met Harry Belafonte who helped her g...

Davis, Ossie

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jv1rhm (person)

Ossie Davis is an actor, playwright and director who has performed for stage, film and television, and specializes in film production relating to black culture and history. Born in 1919 in Cogdell, Georgia, Davis attended Howard University from 1938 to 1941. His theater career began in the early 1940's with such plays to his credit as "Anna Lucasta," "No Time for Sergeants," "A Raisin in the Sun," and "Purlie Victorious." Three of the many films he acted in are "The Joe Louis Story,...

Burnham, Louis E.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bv9w32 (person)

Louis Everett Burnham (1915-1960), African American journalist and activist. Burnham was a member of the Southern Negro Youth Congress and served as editor of Freedom, a newspaper founded in 1951 by Burnham and Paul Robeson, and the National Guardian. From the description of Louis E. Burnham collection, 1941-1960. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 701242808 Louis E. Burnham was the Editor of "Freedom," the newpaper Paul Robeson founded, Associate Editor of the "Nat...