The dedication of the Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House |
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26 August 2004 ATTENTION: Higher education writers, assignment desks |
Contact:
Noel Gallagher
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WHAT
The dedication of the Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, a 120-bed residential hall at the University of California, Berkeley, that is being renamed in honor of a campus alumna who was the first African American woman to be certified to teach in California schools.
WHEN
Monday, Aug. 30, 11 a.m.
WHERE
2333 College Avenue, Berkeley
WHO
Mary Ann Mason, dean of the Graduate Division, along with friends, colleagues, and sorority sisters of the late Jackson.
DETAILS
Jackson graduated from UC Berkeley in 1922 and earned her master's degree from UC Berkeley in 1924. In addition to being the first African American woman to be certified to teach in the state, Jackson became the first African American person of either gender to teach in Oakland in 1926 and was dean of women at Tuskegee Institute.
She founded the Rho chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at UC Berkeley and served as national president from 1934 to 1936. In the 1930s, she founded the Mississippi Health Project in her native state, which helped inoculate over 4,000 infants and children against diphtheria and cholera.
Land donations to UC Berkeley made by Jackson in 1972 continue to finance fellowships earmarked for black graduate students working on their dissertations at UC Berkeley. She died in 1996 at the age of 93.
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NOTE: Reporters are invited to attend the event. A black-and-white photograph of Ida Louise Jackson is available for download at https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/download/.