Alphonso Jackson

Alphonso R. Jackson (born September 9, 1945) served as the 13th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Jackson was born on September 9, 1945, in Marshall, Texas, and grew up in South Dallas as the youngest of twelve 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.

Jackson attended Truman State University and studied political science there.

In March 1965, Jackson, then a college freshman, participated in the first civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama that became known as Bloody Sunday.

Jackson began his professional career in St. Louis as an assistant professor at the University of Missouri – St. Louis.

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 Washington University School of Law in 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.

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.

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.

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 Texas governor declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election, 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 Martinez.

He was nominated by President George W. Bush on August 28, 2004, and confirmed by the Senate on August 31, 2004.

Jackson succeeded Martinez as Secretary in August 2004, and served until resigning in March 2008.

Jackson announced his resignation on March 31, 2008.

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.

In 2012, Jackson became Vice-Chairman of Consumer & Community Banking with JPMorgan Chase in New York City.

An expert on public housing and urban issues, Jackson has been asked to serve on a number of national and state commissions, most notably the General Services Commission of the State of Texas, where he served as Chairman; the National Commission on America's Urban Families, and the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing.

He has served on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Nature Conservancy of Texas, Vice Chairman of United Way Campaign(Dallas, Texas), Zale-Lipshy University Hospital, The Cotton Bowl Football Classic, Central Power & Light Company, West Texas Utilities and JPMorgan Chase (formerly Texas Commerce Bank).

Jackson currently serves on the United States Department of State Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Howard University's Board of Trustees and the Ford's Theatre Society Board of Trustees.

Also, he is a member and serves on the Board of Directors, The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Incorporated, and is a member of the United States Institute of Peace International Advisory Council.

The Aspen Institute – Aspen Fellow; The National Boys and Girls Clubs of America – Chairman's Award; The National Academy of Achievement – Golden Plate Award; American Family Life Assurance Company (AFLAC) – Lifetime Achievement Award; The Jewish National Fund, New York – National Tree of Life Award; Truman State University – Distinguished Alumni Award; Washington University in St. Louis – Distinguished Alumni Award.