Jackson was born on October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the illegitimate daughter of Johnny Jackson and Charity Clark. Her father was a stevedore, barber, and sometime minister; her mother was a maid. Originally named Mahala and nicknamed Halie, Jackson was born with severely bowed legs and eye problems. But under the loving care of her mother's family, she overcame these early handicaps. At age five she lost her mother; she was raised for the next ten years by a maternal aunt, Mahala Paul, known affectionately in the family as Aunt Duke.
Education
Jackson had limited formal education, dropping out of McDonough School No. 24 in New Orleans in the eighth grade.
Career
Jackson worked as a laundress and a nursemaid until 1928 when she left her hometown for Chicago. Rooming with another aunt, she hoped to study nursing, but financial difficulties, exacerbated by the onslaught of the Great Depression, forced her to take up her old trade of laundress. Meanwhile, Jackson became active in the Greater Salem Baptist Church choir in Chicago. During her New Orleans youth her strong, soulful singing of gospel songs in church had attracted local attention. Now, in the larger, more middle-class black neighborhoods of Chicago, she gained a wider audience. Although some black churches were reluctant at first to accept her expressive singing style, Jackson soon became much in demand as a soloist. Jackson became an admirer of black activist Marcus Garvey, who came to Chicago during the Depression to lead protests against mistreatment of blacks by landlords. Her observations of Garvey's work and her own experiences of poverty and prejudice against blacks would make it easy for her to embrace the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's.
A turning point in her singing career came in 1929 when she formed the Johnson Gospel Singers, which performed in Chicago as well as elsewhere in Illinois and in Indiana. Singing with the Johnsons increased Jackson's professional exposure and gave her confidence to go solo outside the limited venue of Chicago's black neighborhoods. Her solo career progressed more slowly. She was forced to work in a factory and as a hotel maid to make ends meet. Her first husband, Isaac Hockenhull, encouraged her to look beyond gospel music. He insisted that she take voice lessons and sing classical music. Others tried to convince Jackson to add blues to her repertoire. In 1937 Jackson jazzed up her first name by adding an "i, " increased her touring and, by the end of the decade, was finally making her living by singing gospel songs. She performed at tent revivals, in store-front churches, and in ballrooms. She increased her popularity by often greeting fans and selling tickets herself.
Her career got a boost in 1939 when she toured with Thomas A. Dorsey, writer of such gospel classics as "Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley. " Also in 1939 she invested her earnings in "Mahalia's Beauty Salon" and "Mahalia's House of Flowers, " businesses located in Chicago that soon thrived. During World War II Jackson continued to tour, but she also accepted a position as choir director of Chicago's St. Luke's Baptist Church. The biggest breaks in her career came after the war. First she debuted in New York City's Golden Gate Ballroom. Then she cut a record on the Apollo label, I'm Gonna Tell God All About It One of These Days, that received enough air play to expose her voice to a much wider audience. Her recording breakthrough came with the release of Move On Up a Little Higher in 1947, a hit all across the country, ultimately selling a million copies. Move On Up opened the door for Mahalia Jackson to national and international audiences. Jackson had to hire a manager to handle the many offers to perform. She made another important move when she hired Mildred Falls as her pianist.
For the remainder of Jackson's career Falls was usually her only instrumental accompanist on stage. Jackson continued to record for Apollo until 1954. Some of her more successful songs included "Even Me, " "Dig a Little Deeper, " "Silent Night, " "How I Got Over, " and "In the Upper Room. " Her 1950 recording of I Can Put My Trust in Jesus won a French Academy Award, ironically for the best jazz record of the year. The year 1950 proved to be especially big for Jackson. On October 1 she appeared at Carnegie Hall, thrilling her listeners with renditions of "Amazing Grace" and other gospel favorites. Her Carnegie Hall triumph led to an appearance at a jazz symposium in Massachusetts and an invitation to be official soloist for the National Baptist Convention. In 1952 Jackson embarked on the first of many spectacularly successful tours of Europe. Adoring fans mobbed her at every stop. In the midst of her success, however, she became severely ill.
Arriving home in Chicago, she was diagnosed as having cancer. Despite successful surgery, Jackson continued to have health problems for the remainder of her life. After a lengthy recovery, she resumed singing, first in local Chicago churches and then to a large crowd at Chicago Stadium. Next came appearances on Ed Sullivan's popular television show and a deal with Columbia, a recording industry giant. In 1954 Jackson hosted her own CBS radio show and in 1955 a television show, but both were broadcast only in Chicago: CBS refused to air her television show nationally because of feared hostile southern white reaction. Jackson experienced racial barriers both in the North and in the South. In 1956 she was threatened with violence after purchasing a home in a white Chicago neighborhood, Chatham Village, and shots were fired into her house while she was away on tour. Between singing engagements in the South, Jackson frequently had to sleep in a car because blacks were barred from most hotels.
A highlight of Jackson's career came on August 28, 1963, when she participated in Martin Luther King's March on Washington. During the climactic program at the Lincoln Memorial she sang, at King's request, a memorable rendition of "I Been 'Buked and I Been Scorned. " Five years later a shaken Jackson sang at Martin Luther King's funeral. Aside from straining her health with a continuously heavy schedule of personal appearances, Jackson underwent the stress of a second divorce in 1967. In the last few years of her life Jackson set up the Mahalia Jackson Foundation to support black education. Her appeal and popularity remained strong, and despite lingering illness, she kept touring at home and abroad. In April 1971 she serenaded Emperor Hirohito in Japan on his seventieth birthday. In a trip to Europe that same year, Jackson fell seriously ill and was flown home by an American military plane. She rallied for a time, but soon had a fatal setback with her ravaged heart. She died on January 27, 1972, at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago. She is buried in New Orleans.
Achievements
During her career Jackson brought her brand of gospel music into the forefront of American culture. She used her popularity to make forceful statements on behalf of black civil rights. Despite her political activism, and perhaps because of it, she had millions of fans around the world.
Long a political activist, Jackson supported Harry Truman in 1948, sang at the White House in March 1956 for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and performed at the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In 1960 she supported John Kennedy and later sang at his inaugural party. After meeting King and Abernathy, Jackson channeled her political energy into the civil rights movement. She sang in Montgomery in 1955, departing two days before a bomb wrecked the bedroom in Abernathy's home where she had been staying. She also performed benefit concerts at numerous locations to help King and his newly organized Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Connections
Jackson married Isaac Hockenhull in 1936, His attempt to manipulate his wife's career, plus his gambling habits, led to divorce in 1941. She later, in 1964, married Sigmund "Minters" Galloway, a building contractor and musician. They divorced in 1967.
Father:
Johnny Jackson
Mother:
Charity Clark
Spouse:
Isaac Lanes Grey Hockenhull
Spouse:
Sigmund "Minters" Galloway
Friend:
Dorothy Norwood
She is an American gospel singer and songwriter.
Friend:
Doris Mae Akers
She was an American gospel music composer, arranger and singer.
Friend:
Martin Luther King Jr.
He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his death in 1968.
