Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. was an American politician and attorney from Georgia, a member of the Democratic Party, at the age of 35 he was elected as the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and of any other southern city. He served three terms (1974–1982, 1990–1994), making him the second longest-serving mayor of Atlanta, after six-term mayor William B. Hartsfield. Jackson was born in Dallas, Texas, on March 23, 1938, the third of six children. His family valued education and politics. His mother Irene Jackson graduated from Spelman College, she was a Professor of French at the college. His father Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Sr. was a Baptist minister and civil rights leader. He was a founder of Democratic Progressive Voter’s League in 1936. At age of seven Jackson’s family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where his became a pastor of the Friendship Baptist Church. …show more content…
Jackson held several jobs, including one as an encyclopedia salesman and a stint at the Ohio State Bureau of Unemployment Compensation. Jackson then attended the North Carolina Central University Law School and graduated with a law degree in 1964. Jackson married Burnella Hayes, in 1965. They had three children: Elizabeth, Brooke, and Maynard III. During the late 1960s, he returned to Atlanta and worked for the National Labor Relations Board firm as an attorney, and two years later joined a public interest, low-income legal