Ethel Jean (Riggsbee) Jackson

Mrs. Ethel Jean Jackson, age 82 of 101 Woodcrest Drive, Chapel Hill, NC transitioned into eternal rest on Friday, July 5, 2020, at her residence.

ETHEL JEAN JACKSON
ETHEL JEAN JACKSON , MPH, professor emerita of health behavior and health education, passed away peacefully at home on July 5, 2020. She leaves behind a legacy as a beloved wife to her husband of 57 years, Curtis Jackson, Jr., MPH and also as a mother, grandmother, teacher, mentor, advisor, practitioner and friend.

Ethel Jean Jackson was born to William (nicknamed “Teazelle”) and Easter (Hargraves) Riggsbee at Duke University Hospital. She grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and was raised with her older adopted sister, the late Billie (Hargraves) Dorsey.  Her parents doted on her and Ethel often recalled that on those occasions when her father bought Cornish hens for Sunday dinner, he and Easter made sure that she had one of her very own.  Growing up as the center of attention and the apple of her parents’ eyes gave Ethel a magnetism that caused people to gravitate towards her. And from the beginning, she was surrounded by the arts. With only a fourth-grade education, Teazelle made sure that Ethel Jean learned the words of the Easter plays while balancing a book on her head, ensuring that her delivery was dramatic and precise. Ethel grew up watching her mother rehearse with her father what he would say on his daily radio program “The Corner of William” which aired on the radio station WCHL. He was the only black person with a radio show on the station.

Ethel Jean often reminisced about how during the winter, the family would stay in The Villages on Franklin Street, the building where her father worked as a janitor because there were radiators there that kept them warmer than they would have been in their own house. She thought fondly of these times because the whole family was together. Ethel loved and admired her father who always teased people, and thus the nickname Teazelle. She adored her mother as well, and had basically good memories of her. However, one time her mother did not allow her to go out with her friends. Ethel Jean made the mistake of telling her friend on the phone, “She said I couldn’t go.” After picking herself up off the floor, Ethel never again made the mistake of calling her mother “she”! Notwithstanding this incident, Ethel’s memories of her upbringing were ones of happiness and safety.

However, her idyllic childhood was shattered when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ethel often recounted hearing her mother’s piercing scream when the insurance agent told her that her cancer treatments would not be covered by insurance. On a janitor’s salary, Ethel Jean’s father hired a nurse and Ethel attended school part-time to care for her mother. She would double and even triple whatever nutritional advice the doctor suggested for her mother, hoping this would cure her. Ultimately, her mom was sent to a cancer treatment facility in Lumberton, North Carolina and at just 15 years old, Ethel Jean never saw her mother alive again. This traumatic experience had a lasting impact on her.

Ethel’s father sent her to boarding school after her mother’s death, believing that a motherless child needed more guidance than he could offer. As a result, she finished high school in Sedalia, North Carolina at Palmer Memorial Institute, a prestigious preparatory school for African-Americans, which graduated the likes of Nat King Cole’s wife, Maria Cole. Palmer, “in addition to providing a stellar academic curriculum, [… ] also emphasized the importance of proper etiquette and training in the arts.” The school’s educational philosophy was modeled after the founder Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown’s book The Correct Thing To Do--To Say--To Wear. During this time, Ethel faced racism and Jim Crow barriers even though she was from Chapel Hill, a more progressive southern city. She often reflected on how when she went with her father to the home of one of his employers, she and her father had to enter the house through the back door. When Ethel asked her father why they had to go to the back, Teazelle answered with his wry and quick wit, “We have to enter through the back door so you can go to Palmer.”

After graduating from Palmer, Ethel Jean attended Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. She roomed with her good friend from Chapel Hill, the late Barbara (Pendergrass) Winston. Ethel graduated from Bennett and moved from North Carolina and taught high school in Walterboro, South Carolina and at Blanche General Ely in Pompano Beach, Florida.  Ethel also served as a community center directress in Fort Lauderdale, developing programs in dance, music and drama designed to help children and teenagers express hurts, fears and happiness. Ethel worked with migrant children in the school system, assisting them with their studies and promoting self-esteem. She pulled from her performance days growing up and choreographed elaborate dance performances with exquisite costumes where dancers leaped across the stage and challenged their bodies and minds to stretch beyond what even they believed possible.

It was at Blanche General Ely that Ethel Jean met the love of her life, Curtis Jackson, Jr. When they told Ethel’s aunt Louise Hargraves that they were getting married, Aunt Louise went to her bedroom and retrieved from between the mattress the original one hundred dollars that Ethel’s mother had saved for her to buy her wedding dress. Ethel and Curtis married on Christmas day, three months after meeting. Their marriage was the best gift they could have given to each other.

Ethel Jean loved children and was a natural nurturer and knew instinctively how to motivate others to overcome wrongly imposed limitations. Case in point, when one of Ethel’s former star majorettes, Lillie Pearl (McLamore) Allen, went to college, she was discouraged from auditioning for the elite “Golden Girls” majorette team because her skin was not light enough to be considered “golden”. Distressed, Lillie Pearl turned to Ethel for advice. She told Lillie Pearl to audition for the Golden Girls and make them tell her that she was not good enough for the team. Ethel and Curtis traveled to support her and watched Lillie Pearl become the first majorette on the team that did not have light complexion. Years later, Ethel encouraged Lillie Pearl to obtain her Masters in Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

While in Florida, Ethel Jean and Curtis had their first daughter, Rhonda. They later had their second daughter, Lorie. Despite her involvement in the Florida community, Ethel Jean began to miss North Carolina. For this reason, it was not long before the couple moved from Fort Lauderdale, Florida back to Chapel Hill. It was there that the two had their third and final daughter, Dasha.

After their return to North Carolina, Ethel and Curtis attended the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. According to Ethel Jean, the year the couple enrolled was the first time that the School of Public Health placed a major emphasis on recruiting African American students. That emphasis came in response to advocacy from the School’s Black Student Caucus, formed in 1971. The Jacksons earned Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees in 1974 – Ethel Jean’s in Health Behavior and Education and Curtis earned his Masters in Health Policy and Administration.

Ethel became a health education specialist and worked at Duke University Medical Center with Eva Salber, M.D. to coordinate and manage a community health education program. She also worked in Chatham County on an environmental project that organized local communities to make safety repairs to the homes of senior citizens involved in childcare.

Ethel joined the faculty of the Gillings School as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in 1981. She served as director of the undergraduate program and was also practicum coordinator for many MPH students who worked with health agencies in the United States and several foreign countries. She also served as a visiting professor at North Carolina Central University. She was the faculty coordinator for the Helping Mothers/Helping Families program in Lee and Chatham Counties, and a consultant for Black Churches United for Better Health, a program designed to help church members increase the amount of fruits and vegetables in their diets. During her tenure at the University, she was nominated for the Gillings School’s McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching and was selected to participate in the 1992 Restoration of the Black Family White House Congressional Briefing.

Alongside Dr. Eva Salber, Ethel innovated the concept of the lay health advisor: a local mentor who provides health care advice to the community. Ethel trained these leaders in proper health practices so that they could, in turn, educate the people who regularly turned to them for guidance. After instituting the lay health advisor approach in practice, she formalized the concept in a 1997 article with Dr. Carol Parks, titled “Recruitment and Training Issues From Selected Lay Health Advisor Programs Among African-Americans: a 20-year Perspective.” The article was among the top twenty cited pieces of public health literature for decades, and it is still referenced to this day.

Ethel Jean was a charter member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. In 1994, she co-chaired the chapter’s first Delta Dreamers program – an annual philanthropic event for scholarships – and helped raise the largest amount of scholarship funds in the chapter’s history, more than $20,000. Delta Dreamers continues today and is the chapter’s major fundraising activity.

When Ethel retired from UNC in 1998, the Gillings School established the Ethel Jean Jackson Health Education Practice Award in her honor. This award is given every year to a health behavior graduate student who demonstrates strong commitment and effective action in health education practice, particularly in disadvantaged communities and communities of color.

Ethel was recognized in the community for her commitment to service. In 2014, she won the Hometown Heroes award and received the Village Pride Award from WCHL radio. In 2016, the Durham Alumnae Chapter of Bennett College honored her with the Women of Vision Award of Excellence, in recognition of her distinguished leadership in health education and community outreach. That same year she received “The Riggsbee Heritage Award” in recognition and appreciation for helping to keep the family together and continuing to make an impact on surrounding communities.

Never idle, Ethel Jean was very active in her church, Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church of Chapel Hill. She found her niche working with the Young People Division, “YPD”. It was there that Ethel fulfilled a prophecy she had been given which predicted she would rake children into the kingdom of God. She poured her heart into YPD programming including Vacation Bible School, encouraging people to teach, who had never taught, and encouraging people to attend who had never attended. Vacation Bible School was so well-attended under her leadership that the church ran out of space and had to have class on the porch. Ethel had uncanny leadership ability and employed an innovative concept in her approached to YPD. She believed that YPD was everybody’s responsibility. Hence, she had one adult a month be responsible for the activities with the children in that month. The activities ranged from pizza pool parties to serving in the church. The idea was so successful that St. Paul submitted it at church conference as an example for other churches to emulate. Despite any other activities, Ethel always emphasized to the young people the importance of making Jesus their Savior and Lord. And without fail, she made her presence known at church routinely exclaiming “Glory!” throughout the service.

Ethel Jean suffered a series of serious health challenges. In 2005, Ethel underwent open heart surgery. In 2009, she had knee surgery. That same year, Ethel had a stroke. In 2012, she suffered another stroke. In June of 2018, Ethel suffered a third stroke that left her unable to walk. Three months later in September, Ethel was rushed to the hospital for a fourth stroke. While in the intensive care unit, Ethel suffered yet a fifth stroke and was in the intensive care unit for a week, three days of which she was unconscious and had to be intubated. She had a sixth stroke that same year. Notwithstanding, Ethel did not let these setbacks keep her from expressing herself and her opinions. She gave advice and correction (solicited and otherwise) for as long as she could. Her gift was to draw out your gift – and she did that almost until the end. 

The year before she passed, Ethel celebrated her birthday amongst a house full of family, friends, and colleagues. She literally wore a crown and was celebrated like the queen she was. Crowds of people were crammed into her home celebrating with Ethel for hours. Yet, when asked if she wanted a birthday party like that next time, her reply was “bigger”. For many that party was the last time they would see Ethel alive and they were unknowingly paying her their last respects. Just four months later in June of 2019, Ethel suffered a seventh stroke that rendered her unable to speak or swallow. Ethel remained on a feeding tube for thirteen months. Several times during the last two years she had been on the brink of death, and each time the prayers of the righteous had brought her back. This last time, Ethel Jean did not come back from the brink. She crossed over into eternity. As her good friend from childhood, Alberta Neely, so aptly put it at Ethel’s retirement party, “Ethel Jean may not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but she has a star in Chapel Hill. She has a star at the University. And one day she will have a star around the great throne of God.”

Ethel Jean Jackson was preceded in death by her loving parents William (“Teazelle”) and Easter (Hargraves) Riggsbee; her adopted older sister Billie (Hargraves) Dorsey; her beautiful aunt, Estelle Gattis (“Auntie”); her beloved cousin the renowned Velma Hargraves; her father- and mother-in-law Curtis Jackson, Sr. and Eunice Louise Jackson; her brother-in-law, Ronnie Vernon Jackson and his wife Landanese Pendleton Jackson. She leaves to cherish her memory her husband and soulmate of 57 years, Curtis Jackson, Jr., three daughters: Rhonda Jackson White (Bill, Jr.- deceased), Lorie Louise Rainey (Jesse, Jr.), Dasha Michelle Jackson; seven grandchildren: Miracle King Wilson (Kermit, Jr.), William Charles White, III, Majesty Elise White, Jesse Lee Rainey, III, Caleb Ashley Rainey, Autumn Christian Rainey, and Elias Jackson Rainey; and four great-grandchildren: Edwin Burnell King, Jr. (“EJ”), Eden Melody King, Kindle Spirit Wilson, and Raina Xolani Muldrow; two brothers-in-law: Rudolph Sylvester Jackson (Fran) and Clemist Lamar Jackson (Teresa); eight nieces and nephews: Ayo Janeen Jackson, Nichole Richelle Jackson, Ryan Nicholas Khailer, Jason Moultrie (Londa), Joi Alexia Jackson, Ayana Faith Jackson, Aaron Lamar Jackson, and Cara Teresa Jackson. Ethel Jean also leaves behind a host of other family, friends, church family, students, colleagues, and other love ones.

If it were possible, Ethel Jean’s homegoing service would have been the “bigger” party that she wanted. The family would have tried to have all the people that she had touched come and touch her one last time. The church would ring with song and music and dance and performance—all the things Ethel loved. We would tell our Ethel, Ethel Jean, Jean, Jeanie, Jeanie Bell, Momma, Ma, Mommy, Aunt Jean, Ma Jackson, and Mamma Jean stories together and let the sorrow and grief release from our souls. We would hold each other and comfort each other and support each other through the process. We would assure and reassure each other that everything was going to be alright, that she was in a better place, no more suffering, no more pain, no more strokes. We would remind each other that now she was in the presence of Jesus. What greater place to be? We would encourage each other to think of how Ethel would finally see her mom and dad again and all the love ones that got to heaven before she did.

But for reasons outside of the family’s control that bigger party was not to be. Covid-19 has forced all of us to change our behavior and ultimately modify and/or curtail our activities and gatherings. Rather than the big send-off Ethel would have loved and the family would have loved to have, a private graveside ceremony was held at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, July 8, 2020 at the Westwood Cemetery, Fidelity Court, Davie Road, Carrboro, North Carolina 27510. However, the family would like to extend its deepest and warmest gratitude to all those who love and care about Ethel Jean. And we know that all of you are with us in spirit.