Encyclopedia

This interactive encyclopedia offers teachers and students access to terms, people, and events related to the history of Slavery in America. Many entries include reference material and some of the biographies on prominent figures contain suggestions for teaching as well as links to related sections of this site. The encyclopedia will continue to grow throughout the course of this project.

Jackson State University: A school established in 1877 by the Baptist Home Missionary Society to train black ministers in Natchez, Mississippi. They called it the Natchez Seminary for the moral, religious, and intellectual improvement of Christian leaders of the colored people of Mississippi. In 1882, the seminary moved to the northern edge of Jackson, Mississippi, to attract a greater number of students. Along with the geographical shift, the seminary changed its name to Jackson College. It relocated a third and final time in 1894 to its present location in the southwestern portion of the city where it operated as a private church school until 1940. In that year, the State of Mississippi assumed support of the school as a teacher's college for black students. Gradually, the curriculum expanded to include graduate studies and other bachelor's programs in arts and sciences. It achieved university status in 1974 and is the largest historical black college in Mississippi with 6,500 students. Rod Paige, the current Secretary of Education, is a graduate of Jackson State. It is interesting to note, moreover, that the university is located on a street named after John R. Lynch, the former slave who became one of Mississippi's outstanding black politicians in the Jim Crow era of the late 19th century. In 1968, students at Jackson State joined other black students at Brandeis, Cornell, and Howard in staging sit-ins to demand a stronger emphasis on black studies in the curriculum. It is one of six historically black colleges and universities to provide a Masters of Business Administration degree.

Jackson, Mahalia: (1911-1972) Perhaps the most famous gospel singer of her day, Mahalia Jackson was born in 1911 in New Orleans. Growing up in the Birthplace of Jazz, living next door to a Holiness Church, attending Mount Mariah Baptist Church, and having relatives who were active in the musical profession all influenced Mahalia Jackson to sing. At sixteen she moved to Chicago and in 1936 married Isaac Hockenhull, who actively encouraged her to pursue music as a career. While a great deal of money could be made in singing Blues, she steadfastly refused to sing this style of music throughout her entire life. Mahalia Jackson married a second time, to Thomas A. Dorsey, and made his compositions famous, including Precious Lord Take My Hand.

Jambalaya: Bantu tshimbolebole, dish of tender, cooked corn. African-influenced dish similar to gumbo, particular to New Orleans. Africans brought to Louisiana from the Kongo.

Jarvis Christian College: An educational institution in Hawkins, Texas, whose official founding date is 1913, although the idea for it actually began in 1904 when a group of the Negro Disciples of Christ began to raise money for a school. Chiefly through the efforts of the church's female members, they raised $1,000. The Christian Woman's Board of Missions added another $10,000, and, in 1910, Ida Van Zandt Jarvis and her husband Major James Jones Jarvis deeded 456 acres to build the school. Two years later, 12 elementary-level students entered the institute for religious and industrial instruction. In 1914, a high school curriculum was added making it the only school in East Texas to offer African Americans secondary school education until 1937. In 1927, the school began offering junior college courses and added senior college courses in 1937 and eliminated its high school curriculum. Jarvis Christian College became an approved college for Negro Youth in 1950, which was the only accreditation available to black colleges at that time. Currently, the school enrolls approximately 537 students, mostly local clientele, and offers bachelor's degrees in 12 different fields, as well as pre-law and pre-medicine programs.

Jazz: A largely improvised form of music that replaced ragtime in popularity in the first two decades of the 20th century. It combined elements drawn from minstrel shows, African musical forms, and Irish and Scottish folk tunes. Originating in New Orleans, jazz bands played at funerals, parades, and bars, using brass and reed instruments, as well as drums, instead of traditional black instruments such as banjos and violins. By the 1920s, it, along with the Blues, dominated the urban musical scene from New York to Chicago. In the 1940s, some jazz musicians began improvising and experimenting with complex jazz rhythms and harmonies that became known as "bebop." Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) and Charlie Parker (1920-1955) were the pioneers in this new form of jazz, which soon became the principal musical language of jazz musicians in much of the western world.

Jefferson, Thomas: (1743-1826) The third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, Jefferson was also a member of he second Continental Congress and the author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. A slaveholder, Jefferson's story is a mixed one. On the one hand, he clearly believed that blacks were physically, intellectually, and emotionally inferior to whites, saying so at length in his Notes on the State of Virginia. He also dismisses the work of the black poet Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book in America, as "below the dignity of criticism;" he also warned about the ills that could come from the mixture of the races. Most importantly, he kept his slaves as chattel, refusing to free them upon his death. On the other hand, as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson attacked England for supporting the slave trade in an early draft that was left out of the final document. He also worked hard and successfully to prevent the expansion of slavery into the unorganized Northwest Territories. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, based largely on Jefferson's thinking, outlawed all involuntary servitude except for criminal actions in these regions northwest of the original thirteen colonies. Evidence suggests, moreover, that Jefferson had a longtime relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, who was the half-sister of his white wife, even taking her with him on voyages to Europe. Recent research, including DNA studies, strongly support the long-rumored charge that Jefferson fathered one or more children by Hemings.

Jim Crow: A term describing the American racist culture against blacks, it originated as a derogatory way of depicting black people in the minstrel shows of early 19th century America. Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice popularized the term by marking his face with burned cork or a charcoal paste (known as black face), dressing in sloppy clothes, and dancing a silly jig while grinning broadly. Historian Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, claims that Rice was inspired by the performance he had seen in Louisville, Kentucky, by an elderly slave owned by a Mr. Crow. By 1860, the term was a common part of the nation's vocabulary. Abolitionist speakers used the term in the 1840s to describe segregated railroad car for blacks and whites: the northern black cars were Jim Crow cars. On the eve of the Civil War, the universal image of the silly Jim Crow minstrel character provided southern whites with one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority that were a fundamental component of white popular culture. By the 1890s, the term had come to mean the separation of blacks from whites and the general customs and laws that subordinated blacks as an inferior people. Historians have used the term in reference to the process of segregation or setting the races apart--sometimes meaning customary or informal segregation and sometimes meaning legal or codified segregation.

Johnson C. Smith University: A school, whose establishment in Charlotte, North Carolina, was planned for two years after the end of the Civil War by two Presbyterian ministers--as representatives of the Presbyterian Committee of Missions for Freedmen--to provide teacher education for newly freed slaves. Mary D. Biddle of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, widow of Major Henry Biddle who had been killed in the recent war, donated $1,400 toward the effort, and, in gratitude, the school was named Biddle Memorial Institute until 1876 when it became Biddle University. In 1878, fire damaged much of the school but it quickly recovered, in part, due to a donation by Andrew Carnegie. After another fire in 1921, an appeal went out to Presbyterians for money to rebuild. Jane Berry Smith of Pittsburgh heard the call and donated money for a new dormitory, science hall, and teacher's cottage. In light of her largess (which exceeded $700,000 over the next few years), the school changed its name to honor her late husband, Johnson C. Smith. The following year, the North Carolina State Board of Education recognized the school as a four-year college. The school now enrolls over 1,500 students on its 100-acre campus and offers bachelor's degrees in science, the arts, and social work.

Johnson, Amelia E.: (1858-1922) Born Amelia Etta Hall in 1858 in Toronto, she moved to Baltimore, Maryland and in 1874 married Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson, pastor of the Union Baptist Church. Amelia Johnson took up writing as her ministry, but mostly writing for children. Like other writers of her age, she never explicitly notes the racial background of the people in her fiction, but was recognized for her portrayal of African Americans with "affection for the race, and loyalty to it." She discusses poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence as social problems rather than racial issues. Although all of her novels end on a positive note, they expose the often less than obvious conflict between religion, social idealism, and the limited range of opportunities available to African American women. Her heroines chaff under the burden of being Sunday school teachers instead of ministers, for example. The bulk of her writing was published in a variety of Baptist publications, and today they are enjoying renewed interest as a type of gender analysis within the African- American community.

Johnson, Andrew: (1808-1875) Vice President of the United States during the Civil War, Johnson became President when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; he was the first the first president to be impeached--although he was not convicted of the charges against him and remained in office. Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and raised in poverty. He opened a tailor shop in Tennessee, became active in politics, and achieved fame as an excellent speaker. He served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate during the 1840s and 1850s. During secession, Johnson was the only southern senator to remain loyal to the Union. Lincoln arranged to heave him nominated and elected as vice president principally to show the Border States that he was politically interested in a balanced ticket. After Lincoln's death, Johnson launched a program of Reconstruction that essentially denied all civil and political rights to the formerly enslaved people of the South. This led to bitter confrontation with Congressional Republicans and the onset of a new phase of reconstruction policies characterized by martial law, military occupation, civil rights legislation, the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, and the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the South. Eventually, the Republican majority accused Johnson of violating the Tenure of Office Act when he attempted to remove disloyal cabinet members in violation of the newly passed law requiring the president to seek the approval of the Senate. Although formerly impeached, survived the impeachment trial by a single vote. After leaving office in 1868, Johnson was elected again to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, but died a few months after taking his seat.

Johnson, Charles Spurgeon: (1893-1956) A sociologist and editor from Bristol who, after studying sociology at the University of Chicago, returned to the South to become an expert on race relations and urban sociology. He made major contributions to the understanding of the South as a region by studying the economic foundation of race relations. In 1947, he was named the first African-American president of Fisk University.

Johnson, Georgia Douglas: (1880-1966) After being educated at Atlanta University (graduating in 1896), Oberlin Conservatory, and the Cleveland College of Music, Georgia Douglas Johnson turned from her initial love of music to lyric poetry. She taught school in Alabama and then moved to Washington DC to engage in government work with her husband, and to author several books. She is considered on of the principle writers of the Harlem Renaissance era, although she was well into her thirties when she began writing. Her husband resented her literary ambitions and she was unable to seriously pursue them until after his death in 1925. Over her lifetime, she published four volumes of poetry. Her home in Washington at 1461 S Street NW functioned as one of the greatest literary salons of the Renaissance. It is believed that she also wrote a number of plays and novels that have been lost, as well as numerous short stories published under the pseudonym of Paul Tremaine, and a weekly newspaper column that was syndicated in 20 publications from 1926 to 19332, and several musical compositions. When her job with the U.S. Department of Labor was lost in 1934, she worked in a clerical pool and lived with her son while still offering financial and emotional support to struggling artists up to the time of her death.

Johnson, Jack: (1878-1946) He was born in Galveston, Texas in 1878, the son of a school janitor, Jackson was nicknamed "Li'l Arthur" as a young man because he was so small. He traveled the country as a hobo and learned to fight by working out with professional fighters wherever he went. He became the first black heavyweight champion by defeating Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia on December 26, 1908. He fought nine years and lost only three bouts out of about 100. His victories stirred bitter racial outcries by white Americans, who rallied behind the retired white champion Jin Jeffries to recapture the crown. Johnson knocked Jeffries out in the fourteenth round on July 4, 1910, in Reno, Nevada. After Johnson beat Jeffries, known as the "Great White Hope," enraged whites assaulted blacks throughout the nation. At least eight people died, and many states and towns banned the Johnson/Jeffries' fight film. An exciting public figure, Johnson was the most controversial and discussed sports figure of his day. Johnson left the US over legal problems in 1913. He fought challenger Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba in 1915 and was knocked out in the twenty-sixth round. He had a professional record of 107 wins and 6 losses. He died June 10, 1946 in an automobile crash in Raleigh, North Carolina and was inducted in the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954.

Johnson, James Weldon: (1871-1938) Born to middle-class African-American parents in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, James Weldon Johnson earned his bachelor's degree at Atlanta University in 1894. At that point he was appointed the principal of the Stanton School and one year later established the Daily American. In 1898, he became the first African American admitted to the Bar in Florida. In 1901, he moved to New York and, while studying creative writing at Columbia, in conjunction with his brother, composed over two hundred songs--including the words to "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which was adopted as the "Negro National Anthem" in the 1930s. In the Washington-Du Bois split, Johnson supported Washington, which allowed him to come to the attention of the T. Roosevelt administration, and to be appointed consul to Venezuela. During the next three years he completed his only novel: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, which became a best seller when it was reissued in 1927. Following an appointment to Nicaragua, Johnson moved back to New York and became the editor of the New York Age, the city's oldest and largest African-American newspaper. In his writings for the paper he displayed a strong sense of racial pride and a belief that blacks would be able to raise their lot, individually. In 1920, he became the general secretary for the NAACP, and worked diligently to increase membership in southern states. His investigations of lynchings and the riots during the "Red Summer" of 1919 gathered crucial information used on the drive to abolish lynching by federal law. Johnson continued his literary efforts during these years, publishing Fifty Years and Other Poems in 1917, The Book of American Negro Poetry in 1922, The Book of American Negro Spirituals in 1925, and Black Manhattan in 1930. He accepted a teaching post at Fisk University in 1930, which enabled him to publish his autobiography, Along This Way (1933) and numerous poems and essays. Johnson's life was brought to a close in 1938 when a train struck the car in which he was riding.

Johnson, Rosamond J.: (1873-1954) A political activist, composer, and beloved performer born in Jacksonville, Florida. By the age of four Johnson was already an accomplished pianist. He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music but left classical performing for musical comedy. With his brother James Weldon and later with Robert Cole, Johnson sang and produced numerous hits performed on the stages of Broadway in New York.

Johnson, William : (1901-1970) Born in Florence, South Carolina, Johnson studied at the National Academy of Design, and the Cape Cod School of Art, in France (1926-1929), and also in Denmark and Norway (1930-1938). He held exhibits for the Harmon Foundation (winnings the Gold Medal in 1929), in Aarlins, Denmark (1935), Baltimore Museum (1939), American Negro Exposition in Chicago (1940). He was a pioneering modernist who constantly changed styles as he studied. His most remembered works include Booker T. Washington; Young Man in Vest; Descent form the Cross; and On a John Brown Flight.

Jollof Rice: Style of cooking red rice brought to the American South by the Mande of West Africa.

Jones, Claudia: (1915-1964) Claudia Jones was born in relative poverty in Trinidad and migrated with her family to the United States in the 1920s. By the time she was 18 she had adopted a Marxist/Leninist ideal as her way of life and centered her activities on black liberation and anti-racism. She founded the Western Indian Gazette and the Afro-Asian Caribbean News in 1958 to better communicate information to the masses of downtrodden peoples. A fiery speaker and committed activist, she was among the most persuasive advocates of racial justice from a socialist perspective in the nation. She was also a founding member of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. Claudia Jones was caught up in the McCarthy era, and was both jailed and deported for her controversial and outspoken views. She died in 1964 in London and her remains are buried next to those of Karl Marx.

Jones, Matilda Sissieretta: (1869-1933) A.K.A.-- Black Patti. Known as the greatest African-American opera singer of her era, Matilda Sissieretta Jones' early life is fairly obscure. She attended the Providence Academy of Music and toured with the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University. She was dubbed the Black Patti to compare her to Adelina Patti, the most well known diva of her day, although she never liked this nickname. She toured for years with a group known as the Black Patti Troubadours until they broke up in 1916. During her lifetime she had sung in some of the greatest concert halls in the country, but mostly to white audiences. She died in 1933 in Providence, in relative obscurity.

Jones, Scipio Africanus: (1865-1943) A Little Rock attorney who defended twelve black farmers unjustly sentenced to death in 1919 for allegedly killing a white man during a race riot in which whites killed at least 25 and perhaps as many as 200 blacks.

Joplin, Scott: (1868-1917) His father bought him piano and he studied classical piano with a local German teacher. However, after he left home, he found work only on brothels and bars. In 1894, he settled in Sedalia, Missouri, where he taught piano and studied theory at George R. Smith College for Negroes. He published a ragtime song, The Maple Leaf Rag in 1899, which became his first successful piece of music. He soon became quite wealthy as a result of his ragtime music. He completed a ballet in 1899 and an opera in 1908. He continued to compose opera, though he had no success with them. He financed a production of an opera in New York, but it was well not received. New Yorkers were not ready for an opera about African Americans and composed by an African American. However, it was finally produced in the 1970s in Atlanta, Georgia and performed many times since. His many ragtime compositions and performances made him among the most popular black musician at the turn of the century, and his music dominated much of popular culture for both blacks and whites until the emergence of jazz and blues music around the time of WWI.

Journal of Negro History: The Journal of Negro History was established by Carter G. Woodson as the official voice of the Association for the Study of Negro (Afro-American) Life and History. The Association was founded in 1915 and the publication of the Journal began one year later and has continued uninterrupted for almost nine decades. The Journal is a widely respected, scholarly publication dedicated to including the history of African Americans in American history.

Juba: Traditional slave food. Refers to the food that enslaved Africans working in the plantation house collected from the "massa's" leftovers. Such leftovers were called juba, jibba, or jiba. On Saturday or Sunday, the leftovers were thrown together; no one could distinguish the meat from the bread and vegetables. This juba was placed in a huge pot, and those working in the ‘Big House" shared it with those working in the fields.