The Importance of an Education
In June 1964, Jackson graduated from law school at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) the same day that his sister Constance graduated from Hillside High School in Durham. Standing between them is their mother, Dr. Jackson, chair of the Foreign Language Department at NCCU. Following the death of her husband, Irene Jackson returned to the University of Toulouse and earned her doctorate in French in 1958.
"John Wesley Dobbs thought nothing was more important in terms of individual advancement, [than] that of education," said his grandson Maynard Jackson while speaking at Spelman College in 1982. Jackson's life embodied that value.
With a thirst for knowledge and an aptitude for acquiring it, Jackson easily completed his studies early at Atlanta University's Oglethorpe Elementary School and David T. Howard High School. He entered Morehouse College at age 14 as a Ford Foundation Early Admissions Scholar and graduated at age 18 in 1956 with bachelor's degrees in politics and history. He earned his law degree (cum laude) from North Carolina Central University in 1964.
In a 1982 lecture delivered at Spelman College, Jackson joked that "Morehouse is a tradition among the women in my family, and both institutions miraculously have survived despite us. “Throughout his life, Jackson emphasized how the historically black colleges developed not only the minds but also the characters of their students.
The Morehouse College campus, 1938. John Wesley Dobbs attended but did not graduate from Atlanta Baptist College, now known as Morehouse College, due to family responsibilities. According to his grandson in a speech delivered at Spelman College, Dobbs did not graduate "so he could always claim that he made it without having to graduate from college and that he was a self-made man." (Atlanta University Photographs Collection)
"I entered Morehouse in 1952...I was only fourteen years old, and while I had a brash and cocky air, inside I was anxious and apprehensive like all college freshmen..."
Morehouse College Founders' Day Address
February 14, 1971
Above: Jackson, a new Morehouse College graduate, 1956. (Courtesy Carol Ann Miller)
Below: Mayor Jackson and Dr. Benjamin Mays, during the unveiling of the portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Georgia State Capitol in 1974. Mays was the distinguished president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967. Jackson served as a trustee of Morehouse College for nearly three decades. He was also a member of the board of trustees at Atlanta University and Spelman College.
Maynard Holbrook Jackson Sr.
The Reverend Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Sr. graduated from Morehouse College and then studied at the Garrett School of Divinity of Northwestern University. His father, A. S. Jackson, was a member of Atlanta University's charter class.
The Dobbs Sisters
All six of Irene Thompson and John Wesley Dobbs' daughters graduated from Spelman College. Irene (Jackson's mother), Willie, Millicent, Josephine, Mattiwilda, and June are pictured here gathered around a piano.
In the letter below, President Dr. Donald Stewart of Spelman College threatens to report Mayor Jackson to his mother (pictured above with her sisters), should he say no to speaking at the school's centennial celebration dinner in 1981.
