CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. Roberta Bowles Hodges Jackson, a retired University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education professor for whom Jackson Hall is named, died Saturday after a long illness following a stroke. She was 79.

Together with her husband, Dr. Blyden Jackson, a pioneering and pre-eminent scholar of African-American literature, Roberta Jackson helped integrate the faculty at Carolina, and the couple was instrumental in elevating African-American faculty to tenure-track status.

The couple was honored for their contributions to Carolina in 1992 when the former Monogram Club Building, which houses the university’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, was renamed the Blyden and Roberta H. Jackson Hall. The Country Club Road building was the first one on campus named after African-American individuals and is among the most visible, serving more than 20,000 admissions-related visitors each year.

At the time, when announcing the building’s name change, Chancellor Paul Hardin commented, "I do not have to tell any of their friends or family how richly this honor is deserved by Blyden and Roberta. They have had distinguished careers on the faculty here, and both were pioneers of dignity and strength in the diversification of the UNC faculty."

Blyden Jackson, the grandson of slaves, joined the UNC-CH English department faculty in 1969, becoming the university’s first African-American full professor and the first African-American man to hold tenure. His 1955 article "The Case for American Negro Literature" was cited as instrumental in bringing black American literature into the curricula at U.S. colleges and universities.

When she joined the faculty one year later, Roberta Jackson became the first African-American woman appointed to the tenure track in the UNC-CH Division of Academic Affairs. She earned tenure four years later, marking another first for an African-American woman in the division.

Born in Germantown, N.C., Roberta Jackson spent her young adult years in West Virginia and learned the importance of an education at an early age. Her mother, Roberta, a schoolteacher, and her father, George, a coal miner, strongly encouraged all 10 of their children to value learning and appreciate the influence it could wield. She attended Byrd Prillerman High School in London, W.Va., graduating as valedictorian.

After earning her bachelor’s degree from Bluefield State College in West Virginia, Roberta Jackson earned her master’s degree in education from Ohio State University and her doctorate in education from New York University.

Before joining the UNC-CH faculty, she taught at Southern University in Louisiana and completed a post-doctoral writing fellowship with the Southern Fellowship Foundation.

In 1972, she was the invited leader of a 30-woman child development group at the 12th International Congress on Family Life, held in Helsinki, Finland. She wrote the 1973 textbook "Some Implications for Career Education" and several scholarly articles on minorities and women in education.

As an executive member of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina from 1974 to 1978, she developed a program to increase adoption of mixed-heritage children.

She received the 1972 Arthur S. Flemming and Patricia Nixon Citation for Service to Project FIND and the 1977 Outstanding Contribution to Children and Families of America Award from the Day Care and Child Development Council of America Inc., for which she served on the board of directors. She once served as a panelist-consultant for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was a member of The Links Inc. and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Both Jacksons retired from the UNC-CH faculty in 1981.

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Blyden Jackson of Chapel Hill; her son, James Edward Hodges Jr. of San Francisco, Calif.; three sisters, Constance B. Eve of Buffalo, N.Y., Ruth Harrison of Beckley, W.Va., and Lucille Hines of Akron, Ohio; a brother, Bobby Bowles of Martinsville, Va.; four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The family will receive friends Friday (July 16) from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Hanes Arts Center on Columbia Street. The funeral will be Saturday (July 17) at 9 a.m. at Chapel of the Cross, 304 Franklin St., Chapel Hill. Burial will take place in Montevista Cemetery in Bluefield-Princeton, W.Va.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Dr. George W. Bowles Scholarship Foundation, West Virginia State College, P.O. Box 1000, Institute, W. Va. 25112-1000.

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