(1925-2017)

Marian Cheek Jackson

Mrs. Marian Jackson served as the historian at St. Joseph C.M.E. since the early 1950s. She succeeded her father, Mr. Kennon Cheek, who established the Janitorial Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1939. Mrs. Jackson lived in her family home of over 100 years. It neighbored one of the first African-American schools in the area and was built by her grandfather, a former slave from Warren County who came to Chapel Hill at the turn of the century to work for the university. He was one of the masons to whom we owe the stone walls that surround the UNC campus.

After Mrs. Jackson graduated from St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh in 1946, she worked at NC Mutual Insurance Company in Durham, the cornerstone of what had come to be called “Black Wall Street.” Interviews with Mrs. Jackson led us to establish a Center where university and community members could come together to continue to build a history of which we can all be proud.

Additional Articles about Mrs. Jackson

 The Northside News, In Loving Memory and Honor of Mrs. Marian Lovette Cheek Jackson
 The Daily Tarheel, Longtime Northside Resident Marian Cheek Jackson Remembered for Lifetime of Friendship
 News & Observer, Longtime Northside neighbor Marian Cheek Jackson dies at 92

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