Editing Alphonso Jackson (section)

==Early life and career==
Jackson was born on September 9, 1945, in [[Marshall, Texas]], and grew up in South [[Dallas]] as the youngest of 12 children in the family. His mother was a midwife, while his father sometimes worked as many as three jobs—as a foundry worker, janitor, and landscaper—to make ends meet.

===Education===
Jackson attended [[Truman State University]], where he studied [[political science]]. He went on to earn a master's degree in education administration from the school in 1969. But instead of taking a teaching job, Jackson enrolled in the [[Washington University School of Law]] in St. Louis.<ref>Brennan, Carol. [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3431400038.html "Jackson, Alphonso R."] Contemporary Black Biography. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. October 1, 2012</ref>

In March 1965, Jackson, then a college freshman, participated in the first of the [[Civil rights movement|civil rights]] [[Selma to Montgomery marches]], which became known as "[[Bloody Sunday (1965)|Bloody Sunday]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Elder|first=Larry|author-link=Larry Elder|title=What's Race Got to Do with It?: Why It's Time to Stop the Stupidest Argument in America|date=March 31, 2009|publisher=St. Martin's Griffin|isbn=978-0-312-54147-7|pages=92–93}}</ref>

===Early career===
Jackson began his professional career in St. Louis as an assistant professor at the [[University of Missouri – St. Louis]]. In 1977, he was named the city's director of public safety. He became executive director of the St. Louis Housing Authority four years later, a job he held until 1983. He left it to work as a consultant to a St. Louis accounting firm and intensified his political activities. Active in both Democratic and Republican circles in the city for many years, he even ran for a spot as St. Louis's municipal revenue collector. He also worked for the U.S. Senate campaign of Jack Danforth, a Republican. His rising profile earned him the attention of officials in Washington, and in 1987, he was made the director of the U.S. Department of Public and Assisted Housing for Washington, D.C.

===Dallas Housing Authority===
In 1989, Jackson was tapped to take over the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas as its president and chief executive officer. He was the first African American to lead the formerly troubled agency, which had become the target of discrimination lawsuits. In his seven years on the job, Jackson was credited with fixing the problems within the [[Dallas Housing Authority]] (DHA) and improving conditions for the city's poorest residents, who turned to it for help in a time of need. He worked to improve the run-down buildings and unsafe conditions that had become standard in the city's aging public-housing units and also arranged deals that improved neighborhood conditions. He managed to find funds for a commercial development project, for example, that brought the first supermarket back to a struggling West Dallas neighborhood in several years.

Jackson's seven-year stint in Dallas was not without its challenges. In 1995 the DHA began implementing a U.S. District Court order that came about after a mid-1980s challenge to desegregate the city's public-housing units. The court order called for 3,200 low-income families to be placed in neighborhoods that were predominantly white, and the agency drew up a plan for new units to be built in a section of North Dallas that was predominantly white. The townhouses or duplexes would house just 75 families, but some 2,000 local homeowners organized to fight it.

===Private sector===
In the end, Jackson left the public sector when Central Southwest Power, now American Electric Power offered him the vice president of corporate resources for CSW Energy and International in Dallas, Texas in 1996. In 1998, he became president and COO of American Electric Power-Texas, an Austin-based subsidiary of American Electric Power, a $13 billion utility company. Jackson was responsible for the company's operations in South and West Texas.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Central+and+South+West+Corporation+Announces+Structural,+Leadership...-a020166781 |title=Central and South West Corporation Announces Structural, Leadership Reorganization - Free Online Library |access-date=November 9, 2012 |archive-date=January 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140104022557/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Central+and+South+West+Corporation+Announces+Structural,+Leadership...-a020166781 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Return to public sector===
With a new Republican administration in the White House, Jackson was a likely contender for a federal appointment, especially since he had known George W. Bush, the former Texas governor, since 1989, when both lived in the same Dallas neighborhood. In early 2001, Jackson's name was approved by Congress to serve as the deputy secretary of the [[Department of Housing and Urban Development]] (HUD), a post that essentially made him second-in-command and chief operating officer of the cabinet department, working under HUD Secretary [[Mel Martínez]].<ref>Brennan, Carol. "Jackson, Alphonso R." Contemporary Black Biography. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. October 1, 2012 [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3431400038.html]</ref>

Jackson succeeded Martínez as Secretary in August 2004, and served until resigning in March 2008. 
 
[[Image:hud-picw-2007-09-04d.jpg|thumb|right|Press conference at the White House discussing financial crisis, left to right, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, President George W. Bush and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.]]
After Jackson's public service in Washington, DC, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he was the distinguished university professor and director of the Center for Public Policy and Leadership at [[Hampton University]], Hampton, Virginia, from 2008 to 2012. Hampton University's Center for Public Policy focuses on making its university research relevant to real-world problems. No other Historically Black University houses such a center.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hamptonu.edu/cppl/|title=Hampton University : Center for Public Policy|website=www.hamptonu.edu}}</ref>

===Current career===
In 2012, Jackson became vice-chairman of consumer & community banking with [[JPMorgan Chase]] in New York City.