Edna Burke Jackson

Edna Burke Jackson (January 25, 1911 – February 21, 2004) was an American educator and writer. She was the first African American woman to teach at what was then Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C. In 2022, the school was renamed Jackson-Reed High School to honor her and Vincent Reed, Wilson's first Black principal.

Biography Edna Burke Jackson was born in 1911 in Washington, D.C. The oldest of four children,

She studied Romance languages, particularly French, and social studies at Howard University on a four-year scholarship that she won by placing second in an Elks Oratorical Contest.

In addition to teaching, Jackson was a writer, first publishing a weekly column in a prominent Black newspaper, the Oklahoma Eagle, while living in Tulsa in the 1930s. From 1959 to 1970, she wrote book reviews for the Journal of Negro History.

Among the potential new names were August Wilson, Hilda Mason, Marion Barry, Northwest, Vincent E. Reed, and William Syphax. But advocates began coalescing around Edna B. Jackson, which had been suggested various times in the past, in honor of her role as a trailblazing Black educator at the school. The school's student paper endorsed this choice, arguing, "As a Black woman, Jackson’s intersectional identity is the antithesis of President Wilson's. Her legacy is uniquely intertwined with our school's past endeavors for equality."

In December, the council voted to rename it Jackson-Reed High School to honor both Jackson and Vincent E. Reed, the school's first Black principal. The name change went into effect on March 15, 2022, making Jackson the first female namesake of a D.C. public high school.