MICHAEL JACKSON is an interdisciplinary artist immersed in journalism, photography, fine art printmaking, music performance and composition. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was awarded the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship Prize.
photo © Shawn Vinson
Continuing work started in London UK as jazz editor for the Guardian, Telegraph and Evening Standard, he has been a regular correspondent for New City, Downbeat, The Chicago Sun-Times and Jazzwise among other publications.
A member of the Chicago Photography Collective, his prolific photo work has been widely published and exhibited; he was nominated for the Lona Foote-Bob Parent Photography Award by the international Jazz Journalists Association in 2011 and 2012.
Also a saxophonist, Jackson leads an eclectic sextet Bangers and Mash and jazz trio Sweet Used to Be.
Active as an educator, he has taught at SAIC, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Evanston Art Center among other institutions.
A member of the Chicago Photography Collective, his prolific photo work has been widely published and exhibited; he was nominated for the Lona Foote-Bob Parent Photography Award by the international Jazz Journalists Association in 2011 and 2012.
Also a saxophonist, Jackson leads an eclectic sextet Bangers and Mash and jazz trio Sweet Used to Be.
Active as an educator, he has taught at SAIC, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Evanston Art Center among other institutions.
A suite of five original screenprints created in 2017 and unveiled at an exhibition of Contemporary British Printmakers during the Southern Graphics Council International Conference in Atlanta.
artist statement:
The genesis of this suite of prints was a trip I made with my kids to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Wandering through the museum to pass the time during a Spring Break vacation, the shock of the callous hand of racism hits. The length whites went to suppress blacks is a matter of profound disgust to me and to have my kids subjected to such facts about American society proved a grim day out. The only redeeming moment in the museum was when I chanced upon a small citation about the tragic life of a southern belle called Juliette Hampton Morgan, a courageous librarian who insisted on writing penetrating letters to the Montgomery Advertiser trumpeting outrage at the way blacks were being treated and exposing the systematic political machinations of white supremacy. Hampton Morgan, sometime before the legendary bus boycott of 1955 went further than mailing letters, she pulled the emergency cord on Montgomery buses whenever she witnessed acts of unacceptable racism. For this she was vilified by the bus drivers, victimized and scoffed at across the board and threatened professionally and personally. Eventually the KKK planted a burning cross on her lawn and she committed suicide not long thereafter.
It is impossible to underestimate the effect learning about Juliette’s life has had on me, I have not stopped thinking about her since I read that small plaque at the Museum years ago. Hampton Morgan was not unknown in the struggle - MLK credited her for inspiring his strategy of Gandhian passive resistance - yet she died alone, depressed and beaten by forces of hate and intolerance. In reading about Juliette I learnt of a few other southern women who were outspoken opponents of segregation at the time (any right-thinking contemporary white men in the south were for the most part ethically spineless) and another of these was Lillian Smith who wrote the scandalous interracial novel Strange Fruit in 1944. Another amazing, strong, fiercely intelligent woman.
I read Malcolm X’s autobiography when I was a young man and it also had a profound effect on my way of looking at the world. Not being American born, the tales of the Civil Rights struggle are more than just some school history lesson, they play vividly in my consciousness. This - allied to my recent horror at the actions or flagrant inaction of the current POTUS in matters of ethnic equality, fanning latent flames of hate in the populace - inspired me to revive the names of these heroes of the movement.
Medgar Evers - a hardworking family man, who had his home bombed and then was, unarmed, shot in the back - his cold-cocked demise remains a major sticking point for me. Thence to learn the governor of Alabama shook hands with Evers’ murderer in court, these matters send me shivers of fury.
James Baldwin attempted to unite his recollections of Evers, X and MLK in a final book that was never finished but stitched together by Raoul Peck in his documentary “I’m Not Your Negro”. Baldwin was gay, as was Lillian Smith: it seems those already ostracized from society had the insight to view that narrow, bigoted society for what it was. The quote under Medgar Evers is uniquely from Baldwin and Baldwin’s own handwriting has been lifted for the quote that crosses his face. Hampton Morgan is represented by the last handwritten note to her psychiatrist where she reveals her severe doubts about the moral fibre of humanity.
Nina Simone (signed as Dr Nina Simone on her print, since she received an honorary degree from the college that rejected her just before her death), was a good friend of Baldwin’s and one of the most chillingly powerful voices in the Freedom Movement, tho she herself felt at an angst- ridden remove from it due to her itinerant life as a musician.
These five personalities mean an awful lot to me and should mean an awful lot to you. They stood their ground against the prevailing tide of despicable ignorance in the USA and their contributions must never be forgotten.
The genesis of this suite of prints was a trip I made with my kids to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Wandering through the museum to pass the time during a Spring Break vacation, the shock of the callous hand of racism hits. The length whites went to suppress blacks is a matter of profound disgust to me and to have my kids subjected to such facts about American society proved a grim day out. The only redeeming moment in the museum was when I chanced upon a small citation about the tragic life of a southern belle called Juliette Hampton Morgan, a courageous librarian who insisted on writing penetrating letters to the Montgomery Advertiser trumpeting outrage at the way blacks were being treated and exposing the systematic political machinations of white supremacy. Hampton Morgan, sometime before the legendary bus boycott of 1955 went further than mailing letters, she pulled the emergency cord on Montgomery buses whenever she witnessed acts of unacceptable racism. For this she was vilified by the bus drivers, victimized and scoffed at across the board and threatened professionally and personally. Eventually the KKK planted a burning cross on her lawn and she committed suicide not long thereafter.
It is impossible to underestimate the effect learning about Juliette’s life has had on me, I have not stopped thinking about her since I read that small plaque at the Museum years ago. Hampton Morgan was not unknown in the struggle - MLK credited her for inspiring his strategy of Gandhian passive resistance - yet she died alone, depressed and beaten by forces of hate and intolerance. In reading about Juliette I learnt of a few other southern women who were outspoken opponents of segregation at the time (any right-thinking contemporary white men in the south were for the most part ethically spineless) and another of these was Lillian Smith who wrote the scandalous interracial novel Strange Fruit in 1944. Another amazing, strong, fiercely intelligent woman.
I read Malcolm X’s autobiography when I was a young man and it also had a profound effect on my way of looking at the world. Not being American born, the tales of the Civil Rights struggle are more than just some school history lesson, they play vividly in my consciousness. This - allied to my recent horror at the actions or flagrant inaction of the current POTUS in matters of ethnic equality, fanning latent flames of hate in the populace - inspired me to revive the names of these heroes of the movement.
Medgar Evers - a hardworking family man, who had his home bombed and then was, unarmed, shot in the back - his cold-cocked demise remains a major sticking point for me. Thence to learn the governor of Alabama shook hands with Evers’ murderer in court, these matters send me shivers of fury.
James Baldwin attempted to unite his recollections of Evers, X and MLK in a final book that was never finished but stitched together by Raoul Peck in his documentary “I’m Not Your Negro”. Baldwin was gay, as was Lillian Smith: it seems those already ostracized from society had the insight to view that narrow, bigoted society for what it was. The quote under Medgar Evers is uniquely from Baldwin and Baldwin’s own handwriting has been lifted for the quote that crosses his face. Hampton Morgan is represented by the last handwritten note to her psychiatrist where she reveals her severe doubts about the moral fibre of humanity.
Nina Simone (signed as Dr Nina Simone on her print, since she received an honorary degree from the college that rejected her just before her death), was a good friend of Baldwin’s and one of the most chillingly powerful voices in the Freedom Movement, tho she herself felt at an angst- ridden remove from it due to her itinerant life as a musician.
These five personalities mean an awful lot to me and should mean an awful lot to you. They stood their ground against the prevailing tide of despicable ignorance in the USA and their contributions must never be forgotten.
earlier prints:
