Lawrence Jackson '86 Details His Relationship with Baltimore in Latest Book

In his latest novel, Shelter: A Black Tale of Homeland, Baltimore, which is set to debut this April, Lawrence Jackson details his complicated relationship with the city he grew up in and to where he returned in 2016 after living and working in Atlanta for more than a decade. Jackson grew up in Baltimore’s Arlington neighborhood with his father directing the Druid Hill YMCA and his mother working for Baltimore County. He attended Loyola Blakefield between 1982 and 1986, which served as the foundation for his career as a writer and English professor.

“Bernard Justis '80 actually went on a date with my sister, and she invited him to family dinner one evening,” said Jackson. “He was the first guy I had ever met who attended Loyola, and I learned all about the school from him.” Jackson decided to apply and received the Headmaster Academic Scholarship. He recalls Fr. Lloyd George, Dr. Vincent Fitzpatrick ‘68, and Murray Stephens ’63 as some of his most influential teachers. “They were fantastic teachers, as they were all very impartial and there wasn’t a lot of favoritism in their classes— especially Vince. He was very much ‘you got what you got.’ The composition instruction I received is the foundation of my whole career—I use it daily. But more importantly, these men prepared me for life. It was a great education.”

Following Loyola, Jackson immersed himself in a liberal arts curriculum at Wesleyan University and went on to earn his master’s degree at Ohio State University and a doctorate in English and American literature at Stanford University. His first job was teaching at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He then moved to Atlanta where he worked as a professor at Emory University for 14 years. Jackson returned to Baltimore in 2016 when he was offered a new position at Johns Hopkins University as their Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and History. He was tasked with leading the interdisciplinary program that blends history and English to explore several topics.

Photo credit: Will Kirk, Johns Hopkins University

In partnership with Hopkins, Jackson also founded The Billie Holiday Center for the Liberation Arts (BHCLA), an initiative designed to foster organic links between Johns Hopkins University and the historic African American communities of Baltimore, celebrating the strengths and amazing potential of both. “We have been providing venues for lectures outside of the university in the Old West Baltimore Historic District, and we have this annual concert, the Billie Holiday Music and Arts Festival, over Labor Day weekend in Lafayette Square near my home church, St. James’ Episcopal,” said Jackson. “The idea is to not only bring parishioners out for a free jazz concert, but to create an opportunity for people from Hopkins to partner with the residents of West Baltimore and to celebrate the incredible music that originated in that neighborhood.”

Photo credit: Will Kirk, Johns Hopkins University

Jackson has also been working to promote urban renewal and revitalization projects of several historic buildings in that area, as well as working with archivists and photographers to create African American collections at the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University and collections, archival preservations, curatorships, and exhibitions with local colleges and universities. “We are just trying to make sure we participate in the custodianship of African American historical records in the region,” said Jackson.

Beyond his accomplishments in academia, Jackson has authored several works including a personal memoir tracing his ancestry in My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War (2012). He has written biographies about African American icons such as Billie Holiday, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Chester B. Himes. His 2015 essay, “The City That Bleeds: Freddie Gray and the Makings of an American Uprising,” which detailed the unrest in Baltimore and the unjust killing of Freddie Gray, appeared in Harper’s Magazine. He also wrote The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934–1960 (2010), which charts consequential midcentury figures such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and many other influential black writers within the drama of the civil rights movement.

In his latest novel, Shelter, Jackson reflects on his homecoming in 2016 and the wider history it inhabits, as well as on Baltimore’s complex past and present. He focuses on topics such as what it means for a Black man to make a home for his family in a neighborhood that would have been inaccessible to him as a child, working at a university with a vexed relationship with its neighbors, what kind of inheritance has he been given, and what will he pass on to his boys. “I always found it fascinating that you can grow up in a place, and it all feels like familiar territory, but then there are always new discoveries to be made,” said Jackson. “You have this desire to share the blessings you’ve received, especially with your children, and you want to try to prepare the way or pass something onto them—a bequest, but the bequest is always a little different than what you had imagined.”

Each chapter explores the convergence of Baltimore and Jackson’s life. A trip to the Eastern Shore offers a chance to consider Frederick Douglass’s complicated legacy, an encounter at a Hopkins shuttle-bus stop becomes a meditation on public transportation and policing, and Jackson’s beleaguered commitment to his church opens a pathway to reimagine an urban community through jazz. As stated in the book’s press release, Shelter is at once a nuanced biography of an American city and a lyrical memoir-in-essays exploring the themes and subjects that animate Jackson’s life: the joys and responsibilities of caretaking and homeownership, the grounding structure of faith and religious tradition, Black fatherhood and the striving for upward mobility, a wrestling with injustice and the undertow of history.

Jackson’s sons, Mitchell and Nathaniel, are also featured prominently throughout the book. Nathaniel is currently a junior at Loyola Blakefield. “I just never imagined that Nathaniel would end up at Loyola,” said Jackson. “Do you know he scored a touchdown in the Turkey Bowl this past fall? I don’t think I had any success in sports during my high school years. And on top of that, he has a 4.0 GPA. He’s having a wonderful time, and he’s really coming into his own.”

Shelter is due out on April 19, 2022, and available for preorder online at https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/shelter.