BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " REBECCA COX JACKSON " WAS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN FREE WOMAN, BEST KNOWN FOR HER RELIGIOUS ACTIVISM AND FOR HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                            BLACK                  SOCIAL               HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871) was an African-American free woman, best known for her religious activism and for her autobiography.

Biography

Rebecca Cox was born on February 15, 1795 in Hornstown, Pennsylvania^[1] into a free family.^[2] She married Samuel S. Jackson and worked as a seamstress until she had a religious awakening during a thunderstorm in 1830.^[2] She got divorced after her husband failed to teach her to read and write, and later realised she was able to do both anyway.^[2] Whilst travelling from church to church, she came upon and decided to join the Shakers in Watervliet, New York.^[2] However she returned to Philadelphia to live with Rebecca Perot for six years,^[2] up until she went back to Watervliet, where she ended her life as Eldress of her own family of Shakers in Philadelphia.^[2] In 1859 she had founded the first black Shaker community in Philadelphia. ^[3]

Her autobiography, although written between 1830 and 1864, was only published in 1981.^[4]

Bibliography

• Gifts of Power:The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress edited with an introduction by Jean McMahom Humez. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.