Vera Jackson

by By Alex Sharp, a first-year graduate student in the history program specializing in social issues. - July 13, 2026

Vera Ruth Jackson was born in 1911 in Wichita, Kansas, and moved to Corona, California with her family in the 1920s. In 1931, she married Vernon Danfourth Jackson and they had two sons, Kerry and Kendall. She was an African American photographer in Los Angeles during the 1940s, rare for the times being both a female and African American photographer. Jackson served as staff photographer for the California Eagle, a popular black newspaper owned by Charlotta Bass, capturing the vibrant social life of the readers’ community. 

The Vera Jackson Collection contains 4x5 negatives from her time at the California Eagle and her personal life. Notable figures photographed include author Langston Hughes, actress Dorthy Dandridge, and political scientist Ralph Bunche. In one image, Hughes gathers for a group shot with actress Juanita Miller, educator Dorothy Vena Johnson, and several others adorned in hats and formal attire. In a more intimate and staged setting, twenty-something actress Dorothy Dandridge sits on the carpet gazing thoughtfully at a magazine.  Events include club meetings, weddings, and parties. Jackson captured birthday parties, such as one for the Durells, and baby showers, such as Haroldine Browning’s, who worked as an aide to businesswoman Leontyne King and actress Louise Beavers. Women’s groups documented include the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, Allied Arts League, and Crop`n Tail Riding Club. Jackson photographed Alpha Kappa Alpha on several occasions, including when members hosted opera singer Marian Anderson. Created in 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha is a historical African American sorority, which Charlotta Bass was a member of. Jackson’s images also capture people walking down streets, buying groceries, and going about their daily lives in Los Angeles. 

In the 1950s, after leaving the Eagle, Jackson became a teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District. Jackson retired in 1976 and traveled extensively to Africa and other countries with her camera in tow. She continued to exhibit her works, including her paintings, in museums and galleries. In the 1980s, she started a business with her son Kerry called Historical Enterprises that focused on photography of Black heritage and history. It offered duplications and licensing of their historical photographs, comprised of photos created from Vera Jackson and other photographers who shot alongside Jackson in early Los Angeles Black newspaper media as well as 19th century and early 2oth century photography she collected or inherited. 

What makes Jackson an important photographer was her willingness to capture both the extraordinary and the mundane. Her images give a glimpse into the daily life of 1940s Black Los Angeles. Often times, emphasis is commonly placed on bigger names, events, and white subjects, but it tends to leave the smaller but still real lives of those in the background. Jackson saw the value in capturing the lives of the underrepresented, whether of greater or lesser fame. While not every name of each person is known in her images, Jackson helped preserve the memory of them longer.

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Post tagged as: photographs, los angeles