HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Hearing old stories from a fresh perspective can help many better understand their history and today at Calhoun Community College, students and faculty gathered for a chance to hear a story about Martin Luther King Jr. told by Jawana Jackson, who lived for a period with Dr. King.
"To know that this man was changing the nation and the world, you know," Jackson shared. "To know that he took the interest to read bedtime stories, to have cookies and tea with me was an incredible time."
Jawana Jackson grew up an only child in a little house in Selma, Alabama. That little house would soon become the place where many prominent African Americans passed through and also the meeting space for one of Dr. King's famous marches.
"The house...it is famous. Not only because Uncle Martin lived there for a period of time, but it is the only private residence in the United States that's been occupied consecutively by African American dentists for their family since it was built in 1912," Jackson shares. "It is also the only private residence in the world that has housed two, the first two African American Nobel peace prize recipients, my uncle Martin and Dr. Ralph Bunche."
The March from Selma took place in 1965 when Jackson was only four years old. The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in Alabama, at the time, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register Black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. Although most scenes of that day and that time have faded in her memory, she remembers very fondly her “Uncle Martin.”
"It says something about the man as well," Jackson shared. " He didn't have to take time with me, but as I said in my remarks here at Calhoun, no one ignored me. Everyone took time to make sure that the baby was taken care of. I just hope that now that they're gone and the baby is no longer a baby, that I am doing what I need to do to not only preserve that house, but to continue to carry the message of the principles that we all must live in and abide by."
