Blyden Jackson

Blyden Brown Jackson Jr. (June 2, 1936 – April 29, 2012) was an American civil rights activist, marine, author, and emergency medical technician. He is best known for his novels Operation Burning Candle and Totem. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut and died in Bayonne, New Jersey. He served as the chairman of the New Haven, Connecticut chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the early-to-mid-1960s. He later founded and became the chairman of East River CORE, located on the east side of 125th Street in Harlem, in New York City.

His last novel, For One Day of Freedom, was published posthumously by ANTIBOOKCLUB in December 2021.

Education Jackson took fiction writing classes at New York University, where he was taught by Sidney Offit.