Jackson Family Playground Dedication at Pratt School, June, 2023

On June 2nd members of the Jackson family, Pratt School, and Prospect Park neighborhood came together to dedicate the “Jackson Family Playground” at Pratt School. The event was co-sponsored by the Pratt Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), Pratt School, and Prospect Park Association (PPA).

Sharon Peters and Judith Claytor, granddaughters of Amy and Madison Jackson, attended the event and are key members of the Jackson Family Project committee. Jackson family history provides a compelling and inspirational source for Pratt students and our neighborhood to examine questions of race and to learn about Black history and resilience. During the event, Pratt School students showed a video they created celebrating and documenting Jackson family history and had the opportunity to talk with Sharon and Judith. A beautiful photograph of the Jackson family taken in 1909 in front of their home on Franklin Ave (see above) was enlarged and framed for the event. This photograph will be displayed in the school with an accompanying information panel.

The Jackson Family Playground project is designed to honor, memorialize, and learn from the first African American family in the Prospect Park neighborhood. The Jackson family built their home in Prospect Park in 1908. In 1909 they were subjected to racist protests because they were Black. Amy and Madison Jackson were told that no one would play with their kids. In response, they built a playground in their yard. This was before the period of park and school playgrounds, and it turned out (as they suspected) many neighborhood kids wanted to play with their kids on the new playground. The Jacksons lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and became important members of the community.

Resilience marked the Jackson family, not only in their Prospect Park years but for generations. Helen Jackson, one of three daughters, who was a little girl during the protests became the first African American national president of the YWCA, devoting decades to leading the YWCA nationally to become an integrated organization, affecting millions of American girls. In 1968 the University of Minnesota (from which she graduated in 1928) awarded her the Regents Outstanding Achievement Award. Marvel Jackson, her older sister, became a well-known journalist in New York City. She was in a writing group with Langston Hughes, worked with W. E. B. Dubois during the Harlem Renaissance, and wrote acclaimed exposes of conditions of African American women for major newspapers. These two girls and their sister Zelma were the first African American students to attend Pratt school, also attending the University of Minnesota.

A joint volunteer committee of PPA’s Community Building group and PTO have been working together for three years to develop this project, learn about the Jackson family, and create wider engagement in the community. The joint school and neighborhood group have spent hundreds of volunteer hours, traveled to archives in Michigan and Washington D.C., elicited significant leveraged contributions already, and have laid the groundwork for this event and those to follow.

Additional activities planned for this project include a plaque placed at the site of the Jackson house, a sign for the newly named Pratt school playground, fundraising for a new playground designed by 4RM+ULA with significant input from the community, a family history repository with QRC code available to the wider community so the lives of Jackson family members will be accessible to all who want to learn about this amazing family, and a curriculum with learning modules about the Jacksons to engage students. The Jackson daughters were the first black students at Pratt school 100 years ago. A first-grade teacher at Pratt has already spearheaded this work and is ready to lead a committee to work on developing similar units for other class levels. Introducing students to these issues via stories about the Jackson girls from the neighborhood has proven to be very powerful.

The Jackson Family Project is funded in part by Pratt PTO, PPA, the University of Minnesota Good Neighbor Fund, Prospect Park Coop Legacy Fund, City of Minneapolis Neighborhood Community Relations, and individual gifts. To learn more about this project visit: https://www.jacksonfamilyplayground.org