Olive Jackson

Olive Jackson

Born: Unknown
Death: Unknown
Place of Birth: Unknown
Location of Death: Unknown
Burial Location: Unknown

Olive Jackson of New York City – in 1899 she became the first African American woman to join the Baha’i Faith.

Olive Jackson, a dressmaker and the first North American Baha’i woman of African-American decent. [1]

Olive Jackson’s membership marked the beginning of black women’s participation in a then uncommon religious movement. Jackson and the women who followed dramatically changed the scope and diversity of black women’s influence when they became members of a religion that placed issues of race and gender at the core of its doctrine. Women from the first generation of Baha’i adherents redefined black womanhood in the context of spiritual principles designed to forge an “organic” unity among all people and to foster new venues for black women’s religious leadership. [2]

Source:
1 – Stockman, Robert. “History of the Baha’i Faith in New York” Bahai-Library.com: Winters, Jonah

2 – Jon Johnson researched African American Baha’is for inclusion in the Baha’is of the United States facebook page

Image:
Art Desgin by Joe Paczkowski