Alexine Clement Jackson, American community volunteer. President Washington Performing Arts Society, 1990-1992; vice president Young Women’s Christian Association of United States of America, New York City, since 1991; board directors Black Women's Agenda, Washington, since 1988, Wolf Trap Foundation Performing Arts, Vienna, Virginia, since 1990.
Background
Clement-Jackson was born in Sumter, South Carolina. She was four years old when her mother, Francis died of breast cancer. She was raised by her father, William A. Clement and her stepmother, Josephine Dobbs-Clement, a 1937 graduate of Spelman College.
Her father was a senior executive for North Carolina Mutal and Grandmaster of the Prince Hall Masons in North Carolina, while her stepmother, daughter of civic leader John Wesley Dobbs, would become a distinguished professor at North Carolina Central University and civil rights activist.
Education
She graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College in 1956 and received her master"s degree in speech pathology and audiology from the University of Iowa.
Career
She is the immediate past president of Black Women"s Agenda and former Chair, the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The Clement-Dobbs Early College High School in Durham is named in Josephine"s honor. Doctor Jackson would eventually become Chief of the Urology Department.
Clement-Jackson began her involvement with the Young Women’s Christian Association not long after Young Women’s Christian Association passed the One Imperative agenda, which sougt to eliminate racism.
Clement-Jackson worked closely with the Young Women’s Christian Association"s National Office for Racial Justice, which was headed for many years by Dorothy Height. Clement-Jackson also facilitated services for women, which included, shelters for victims of domestic violence and childcare centers.
In addition to her five-year term as national president, Clement-Jackson is the immediate past president of Black Women's Agenda and recently retired from the board of The National Museum of Women in the Arts after 12 years of service. She is also a recent past chair of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy, radiation therapy and hormonal therapy.
A 23-year breast cancer survivor, Clement-Jackson has been a long-time advocate and public spokesperson for cancer prevention, early detection and quality health care for all. She is a current board member and past chair of the Intercultural Cancer Council, an organization which addresses the unequal burden of cancer in racial, ethnic and other medically underserved populations. She is also a board member emerita of Prevent Cancer Foundation (formerly Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation).
Achievements
Membership
During her term as president of the Young Women’s Christian Association, she was a member of the United States delegation to Young Women’s Christian Association World Council meetings in Seoul, of Korea, and Cairo, Egypt, and joined a 10-member World Young Women’s Christian Association delegation for a fact-finding mission in the Middle East.
Connections
Married Aaron Gordon Jackson, June 21, 1958. Children: Gordon, Celia, Emily, Juliet, Scott.
Doctor of Humane Letters from Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga. (1998);
Spirit of Civic Giving Award by The Community Foundation of the National Capital Region (2006); Dorothy I. Height Leadership Service Award (2005)
Interfaith Conference of Metro Washington Community Service Award (with husband) (2004)
The Black Women's Agenda Community Service Award (2001)
Washington Woman Magazine's Woman of the Year (1985)
Doctor of Humane Letters from Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga. (1998);
Spirit of Civic Giving Award by The Community Foundation of the National Capital Region (2006); Dorothy I. Height Leadership Service Award (2005)
Interfaith Conference of Metro Washington Community Service Award (with husband) (2004)
The Black Women's Agenda Community Service Award (2001)
Washington Woman Magazine's Woman of the Year (1985)