Biography.

Jalessah T. Jackson is a Black queer (m)other, organizer, teacher-learner, and interdisciplinary cultural worker whose approach to organizing and political education is grounded in a People’s Centered Human Rights (PCHR) theory and practice. Their work revolves around the integration of culture, political analysis and education, leadership development, intergenerational community building, and collective action.

Jalessah holds a BA in African and African Diaspora Studies from Kennesaw State University, and a MA in Gender and Cultural Studies from Simmons University. A community-based educator, they have facilitated numerous teach-ins and trainings as well as taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Public Health and Social Sciences, African and African Diaspora Studies, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Their work inside the classroom and with community exemplifies the interrelationship between study and struggle.

Jalessah came to organizing through their lived experiences as a Black working class single parent living in the south. Committed to the fullest development of oppressed peoples’ collective power and self determination to transform the systems responsible for their ongoing exploitation, they have organized with groups working on militarism, imperialism, and reproductive, racial, immigration, economic and LGBTQ justice as well as militarism. In April 2020, Jalessah founded the Decolonial Feminist Collective (DFC), a group of scholar-organizers across disciplines utilizing internationalist and decolonial approaches in political education, movement, and solidarity-building.

Across all of Jalessah’s experiences in the classroom and in community, her work has been with/in communities who are marginalized through systems of oppression. Jalessah currently resides on occupied Muscogee territory in so-called Atlanta, Georgia with their family. When they are not working and organizing, you can find them with a book or trying out new recipes.