For many, the most vivid memories of Kennell A. Jackson Jr., Branner Hall’s resident fellow for a quarter century, are of commonplace pleasures. Eric Jackson (no relation), ’88, writing on a website filled with tributes, recalled that Jackson invited him to the RF’s apartment almost daily to talk about “the events of the day, life at Stanford and the black experience. . . . I cherished our interactions and came to depend on his tough love and wisdom.” Jackson often donned his apron and treated homesick freshmen to warm chocolate chip cookies. He built a vibrant community of friends and colleagues who remained close to him decades after graduation.
Jackson, a professor of African history who served as director of the program in African and African American studies throughout the ’80s, died November 21 of pulmonary fibrosis at Stanford Hospital. He was 64.
Born in 1941 in the segregated South, he was the son of a schoolteacher and a building contractor. Jackson earned a bachelor’s degree in 1962 from the school that is now Virginia’s Hampton University, and he studied on fellowships at UCLA, the University of Ghana and Cambridge University before earning his doctorate from UCLA. He joined Stanford’s faculty in 1969.
Jackson wrote the 1996 book America is Me: The Most Asked and Least Understood Questions About Black American History. Another book, Black Cultural Traffic: Crossroads in Global Performance and Popular Culture, co-edited with drama professor Harry J. Elam Jr., was published just after Jackson’s death by the University of Michigan Press.
But Jackson will be remembered most for his work shaping young minds, starting in 1971 in Serra House and, since 1980, in Branner, Stanford’s largest all-frosh dorm. Julie Lythcott-Haims, ’89, dean of freshmen and transfer students, worked with Jackson as a resident adviser in the late 1980s. “He inspired his student staff to be better than they were both as individuals and collectively.” He created innovative programs to engage students, such as Branner Presents, a speaker’s bureau that brought cutting-edge cultural and political figures to the dorm’s lounge.
Jamila Rufaro, PhD ’94, a residence dean who is serving as the executor of Jackson’s estate, remembers Jackson as a passionate conversationalist and collector. He acquired Robert Mapplethorpe photographs before Mapplethorpe was big and filled his apartment with teapots, antique toys and books.
In recognition of his University service, Jackson received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Service to Undergraduate Education in 1972. In 1990, he was awarded the Allan V. Cox Medal for excellence in fostering research among University undergraduates. His friend Peter LeVine, ’71, notes that Jackson “chose to spend virtually his entire life teaching and mentoring his students instead of yielding to the academic pressure of writing scholarly articles and books. Kennell Jackson made, literally, thousands of students over a 37-year period more sensitive to the need for positive social, economic and political change.”
Jackson is survived by his brother, Otis, of Chesapeake, Va.
