Cal State Northridge acquires historic collection from Black photojournalist Vera Jackson

The Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at Cal State Northridge has acquired a new collection of historical images from photojournalist Vera Jackson, a news release said.

Jackson, who died in 1999 at age 86, was the only female photographer at The California Eagle, L.A.’s oldest Black newspaper in the 1940s. She was one of five female photographers, among close to 50 photographers, featured in the 1983 exhibition “The Tradition Continues: California Black Photographers,” the release said.

CSUN journalism professor and Bradley Center director José Luis Benavides said that the new addition, among the center’s collections of other pioneering photojournalists, intends “to honor the legacy of Vera Jackson and promote her work among scholars, artists, students and the larger community.”

The collection is instrumental for both CSUN and for Black photographers — where nationally there is very little representation, especially of Black women, Benavides said. He was eager that, through this collection, more people will get to know Jackson’s story. The acquisition builds on the university’s efforts to research and preserve L.A. diversity in a visual way.

Jackson worked for California Eagle publisher and editor Charlotta Bass, who was known to be a civil rights leader and prominent voice of the Black community. As a photojournalist working primarily under the society section, Jackson captured images of the elite and celebrities such as Hattie McDaniel, Dorothy Dandridge, Jackie Robinson, Philippa Schuyler, Jane McLeod Bethune, Lena Horne, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Hazel Scott, the release said.

She also photographed families and personalities in the Black community, businesses, and political and civil rights events around Los Angeles. In the 1950s, Jackson pursued teaching, traveling, and continued photography for magazines and exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited in various libraries, media and museums.

“Vera Jackson’s images are much more than a photographic record,” Benavides said. “They are also a form of artistic expression of a pioneer photographer helping us appreciate and better understand life in Black Los Angeles…  (her) photographs not only reflected a woman’s perspective and artistic sensibility, but also a focus more on women in the community, documenting their work, their achievements, and their image.”

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The collection — in the process of being archived, cataloged and preserved at the Bradley Center — will hopefully be available for public access within the next year, Benavides said.