Meet Your Neighbor: Jacksons help preserve African American heritage

FREMONT - During their time living in Fremont, Dr. Alvin Jackson and his wife, Dr. Gayle Jackson, greatly influenced the town. Alvin served as the Director of the Ohio Department of Health, and Gayle, who held a PhD in pharmacology, was a founder of the ACE mentoring program and the former African American College Club at Ross High School.

Alvin and Gayle touched many lives before they moved to Georgia a few years ago, but while many remember the legacy they left behind, few know the difficult heritage of discrimination Alvin — and his ancestors — overcame. Generations of determination in the face of slavery, unsupported education and blatant racism produced the success and influence that has defined Alvin’s life.

Today, the Jacksons are honoring that legacy through their work with Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center in Georgia, where Alvin is founder and board president and Gayle serves as development director. The center honors the legacy of Willow Hill, a school started by former slaves in 1874 that has a rich history in Bulloch County, Georgia. Alvin is a descendant of the founders of the school and its first teacher, a 15-year-old former slave.

Willow Hill’s first building was a crudely built, one-room turpentine shanty with one window and an outside privy that stood “amidst briars and poke weeds,” according to information provided by the Jacksons. Willow Hill was one of the first schools for African Americans, and, in 1920, it formally joined the Bulloch County Public School System.

A modern building was constructed in 1954, and the school was first integrated in 1971. It closed in 1999 and was auctioned off in 2005. Alvin and other descendants of the school’s founders joined forces to purchase the school and form Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center.

Today, with the Jacksons’ guidance, the center focuses both on preservation of the area’s history as well as on public health.

“We established the museum to keep the records and accomplishments of African Americans in the area and beyond,” Gayle said. “Alvin understands that the stories of African Americans are not in the books — stories of the schools, the churches and the culture.”

Alvin has amassed a large collection of oral histories that are being slowly transcribed into written records, and he has researched and preserved large numbers of death records, a task not easily accomplished since deaths of early African Americans were often not formally recorded. Alvin finds them through funeral home records and funeral programs.

“He has a collection of over 10,000 funeral programs from Bulloch and surrounding counties. He’s been collecting them for over 30 years,” Gayle said.

Preserving the lives and accomplishments of African Americans is personal for Alvin, who fought the pain and restraints of racism and personal loss in childhood. His first tragedy struck when his mother died in 1951, when Alvin was just 18 months old. His father was a migrant worker, so Alvin and his two siblings were sent to live with their grandparents. It was there he learned the importance of family history.

“He liked to follow his grandmother. He’d pick up information from her conversations with other people,” Gayle said. “Now, when he talks with older people, he can connect with them, because he connects to the stories of his grandmother.”

As a teenager, Alvin endured racism when he chose to attend Statesboro High School under a “choice” program, created to meet the demands of desegregation laws, which allowed students to choose a school. Alvin was one of a very few African American students who chose to attend a white school. While there, rocks were hurled at Alvin, and food was thrown on him in the cafeteria.

Although the choice to attend was legally permitted, it was not expected. At the school’s 40th anniversary, a white former fellow student wrote a letter of apology to her African American classmates, deriding the collective attitude that felt “everyone knew what choice was supposed to be made.” Like many, her attitude was one of fear, anger and curiosity.

But Alvin overcame that opposition because, like his ancestors, he had bigger plans for himself — plans to be educated and productive — than those around him thought he could accomplish.

“He knew going to the white school would enhance his opportunities. He’s always been ambitious about what he wanted to do with his life,” Gayle said. “As a medical doctor, he served people all the time. That’s who he is.”

Contact correspondent Sheri Trusty at sheritrusty4@gmail.com.