Alphonse J. Jackson

Alphonse Jackson, Jr. (born November 27, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana) is a retired educator and a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, where he represented District 2 in Caddo Parish. He was a charter member of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, founded in 1977.^[1]

Prior to and during his legislative service Jackson was active in the civil rights movement, working in consort with black dentist Louis Pendleton and white school board leader Don W. Williamson in Shreveport and surrounding Caddo and Bossier parishes.

As a legislator, the Democrat Jackson opposed the Balanced Treatment Act regarding the teaching of creation science and evolution in Louisiana public schools. The law was written by a Shreveport colleague, State Senator Bill P. Keith, also a Democrat. It was struck down in 1987 by the United States Supreme Court in the decision Edwards v. Aguillard.

Alphonse and his wife, the former Glenda Hurst, live in Baton Rouge. He has two daughters, Angela Eileen Jackson and Lydia Patrice Jackson and one stepdaughter, Andrea Archie. Lydia represented District 39 (Caddo Parish) in the State Senate from 2004 to 2012, when she was unseated by her predecessor in the office, fellow African-American Democrat Gregory Tarver, a Shreveport businessman. Tarver had defeated Keith for the seat in 1983, when African Americans became the majority of voters in the district. In the elections of 2011, Tarver returned to reclaim the Senate seat from Lydia Jackson.

Alphonse Jackson is the eponym of the Alphonse Jackson Early Childhood Center in Shreveport.^[2]

References

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