Blyden Jackson

Blyden Jackson (October 12, 1910 – May 1, 2000) was a Black American academic, essayist, and activist.

The grandson of slaves, born in the segregated South, Jackson was the first Black American to become a full professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969, and "the first Black American professor at a traditionally white university in the Southeast". His grandparents were slaves. His father, George Washington Jackson, was a history teacher and his mother, Julia Reid, a librarian. He had a brother, Reid E. Jackson Sr., who later became a professor at Morgan State University.

Jackson graduated from Wilberforce University in 1930. where he earned a master's degree in 1938 and a PhD in 1952. where he was the first African-American faculty member to become a full professor. The Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall, which houses the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, was named for them in 1992. Jackson died in 2000, at the age of 89.

Selected works Literary criticism