The Jackson Family

For the Jackson family, refusing to leave this history behind has been a shared inheritance. Across generations, relatives have kept the stories alive at kitchen tables, held onto the few photographs and records that survived the fire, and passed down the memory of a great-uncle whose story was buried, dismissed, or reduced to a footnote for a century. What you see here is the work of that family — together — to reconnect the Jackson line and the descendants of Greenwood with a history that was violently interrupted in 1921. Dr. Andrew C. Jackson (1879–1921) was, in the words of the Mayo brothers, "the most able Negro surgeon in America." A graduate of Meharry Medical College, he built a celebrated practice in Tulsa's Greenwood district and became one of the most respected physicians — of any race — in the state of Oklahoma. His life was taken on June 1, 1921, when he walked out of his home on Detroit Avenue with his hands raised in surrender and was shot down on his own front lawn as the Tulsa Race Massacre raged. No one was ever held accountable. The home that held his family's records, photographs, and history was looted and burned. That loss is what the family carries forward. The memory belongs to all of them, and every page, every document, every family record gathered here exists because the Jacksons, together, chose to make sure the world knows who Dr. A. C. Jackson was, and to ensure his name is never forgotten again.