Jarrett J. Jackson

About the Author

Jarrett J. Jackson “I don’t write books. I trace flames across centuries.”

Jarrett J. Jackson is a Pan‑African historian, genealogist, and poetic chronicler of African, African American, Afro‑Indigenous, and Afro‑Caribbean memory. He writes where the archive runs thin—where courthouse ink fades, where church records end mid‑sentence, where a headstone gives only a first name, and where a family sustained by prayer and grit refuses to be reduced to footnotes.

Author of more than thirty works, Jackson turns DNA into story, silence into song, and memory into monument. His books travel into classrooms, community rooms, church basements, and cultural centers—by educators, organizers, elders, and young people who need more than dates. He writes for readers who want receipts and rhythm, proof and poetry, because Black history deserves both.

His work is not confined to shelves. He has traveled through Senegal, The Gambia, and Burkina Faso, following history with his feet and confirming kinship with his evidence—meeting cousins in Senegal and The Gambia—people he first found through DNA testing and match clustering—and honoring those reunions with care, consent, and cultural context.

Author Statement

“I don’t preserve history—I resurrect it. I write for the bloodlines nearly erased, for the classrooms still searching, and for the young ones asking where they come from.”

Jackson’s mission is simple and serious: recover the buried, restore the stolen, and name what the world tried to leave unnamed. History, for him, is a living inheritance. When an inheritance has been attacked, protecting it becomes an act of love.

✦ Selected Works

Jackson’s catalog is a mapped diaspora—rooted, global, intimate, practical, lyrical, and unyielding with care. The titles below are grouped the way his work moves: from method, to community, to diaspora, to classroom.

Genealogy, Method, and the Work of Proof

• From Paper Trails to Chromosomes: Genealogy for All Levels — a practical fusion of DNA science, oral tradition, and archival research.

• Carried in Her Bones and The Bone Atlas — narrative explorations that braid genetic evidence with testimony, place, and proof.

Local Memory, Black Institutions, and the Architecture of Community

• Bondage, Bell, and Beacon: Rev. Horace Johnson Carr, Sr., Mount Zion, and the Making of a People — a foundational family and community story that shows how faith, land, and leadership sculpted a people’s future.

• Brick by Brick: Building Black History in Maury County — excavating local histories to reveal how community, struggle, and architecture build and preserve Black life.

Diaspora Journeys and Atlantic Reckonings

• The Geography of Us: From Ouidah to Harlem—Journeys to Reclaim Black Identity — tracing routes, roots, and reclamation across Atlantic worlds.

• Lisbon and the Legacy of African Enslavement: The Role of Portugal in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Global Human Exploitation — a critical study of European complicity, commerce, and cruelty in the Atlantic system.

• Island of Her Bones: A Guanche Ancestral Journey — a poetic reclamation of Canary Islands roots, illuminating forgotten matriarchs of the African Atlantic.

• Echoes of Hairoun: The Untold Journey of the Garifuna People — a lyrical history of resilience, migration, and memory.

• Where the Herd Remembers: Fulani Studies for the African Diaspora — bridging West African historical memory with diasporic reconnection and study.

• Diaspora Rising: A Field Guide to Pan‑African Memory and Power — a practical manual for turning archive into action, history into movement.

Classroom Guides, Civilizational Memory, and Unhidden Heroes

• A Student’s Guide to Black History: From Africa to the Present — a classroom‑ready, empowering map for young learners and educators.

• Chronicles of Civilization: The Interwoven Histories of Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Songhai and Benin — connecting grand African civilizations to ongoing memory and identity today.

• Sons of Fire: Black Men Who Built the Soul of America — a sweeping tribute to Black brilliance across generations.

• Daughters of the Dust: Black Women Who Shaped America from the Soil Up — celebrating the foundational work and influence of Black women across time and place.

• Hidden Heroes: The Black Women Who Shaped America — shining a light on the unsung heroines whose labor and leadership built nations, communities, and movements.

These titles are not separate projects; they are one continuous commitment—to naming what was buried, weaving what was cut, and restoring what was silenced.

✦ The Family Biography Cycle

Jackson’s work is global and deeply personal. His family biography series transforms lineage into literature—turning family trees into forests of faith, resistance, and legacy. Highlights include:

• Beyond Construction: The Civil Rights Journey of Joseph Dunbar Gamble (2025)

• From Bondage to Beacon: The Carr Family’s Legacy of Faith and Leadership (2024)

• Legacy of Resilience: The Life and Impact of Dr. Curtis Ottawa Greenfield (2024)

• Professor S. L. Barker: A Beacon of African American Education in Kentucky (2024)

• Rev. J. W. Carr, D.D.: A Beacon of Faith and Justice in African American History (2024)

• Rev. T. J. Carr, D.D.: Pioneering Faith and Activism in African American History (2025)

• Riding for Justice: The Activism of Joseph Perkins Jr. (2024)

Behind these titles is a living roll call—names that are not simply relatives, but responsibilities and guides:

“I was carried by Rev. Horace Johnson Carr, my fourth great‑grandfather, whose voice roared with the righteous thunder of a people unbowed.
I walk in the cadence of Rev. T. J. Carr, my second great‑uncle, a theologian who wrapped the Word in liberation.
I follow the trail of Rev. J. W. Carr, D.D., and Rev. A. M. Carr, my third great‑uncles, whose footsteps echoed through sanctuaries where strategy met salvation.
I was nurtured by Professor S. L. Barker, my second great‑grandfather, whose chalk was a wand of awakening.
I was shaped by Rev. William Russell Greenfield, my great‑granduncle—a pastor and prophetic sentinel.
I am bound by honor to Joseph Price Perkins Jr., my cousin, a Freedom Rider whose courage thundered through buses and courtrooms.
I stand with Joseph Dunbar Gamble, my cousin, who marched on Washington and carved equity into the stone of this nation.
And I honor Dr. Curtis Ottawa Greenfield, my cousin—a WWII veteran, educator, and civil‑rights torchbearer whose name lives in the school that bears it.”

✦ Ancestry, DNA, and the Ethics of Proof

Jackson’s genealogical work rests on documents, grows through genetics, and is guided by consent and context. Documentary sources identify William Kennerly as Jackson’s fourth great‑grandfather through Kennerly’s daughter Bettie Kennerly, the author’s third great‑grandmother. Family Y‑DNA testing of a paternal‑line cousin, shared with consent, finds the Kennerly line at E‑CTS9806. Public genetics resources note Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s paternal lineage at E‑FTA86622, within the broader E‑M2 tree—an example of deep, population‑level paternal ancestry rather than recent kinship. These findings echo through the life of Joseph Dunbar Gamble, a documented Kennerly descendant whose civil‑rights leadership shaped New Mexico’s history.DNA & Privacy Note: Living testers are referenced with consent. Haplogroup overlap speaks to deep origins and does not, by itself, establish close familial relationship.

✦ Mission & Method

Jackson braids three strands—documents, DNA, and oral testimony—held together by cultural context, consent, and care. He works with match clusters, ICW patterns, archival corroboration, and lived memory, translating technical evidence into language communities can use: to teach, heal, remember, and rebuild.

Research is not just research. It is repair.

✦ Collaborations, Speaking, and Impact

Jackson is an active member of the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) and a frequent collaborator with historical societies, educational institutions, and Pan‑African organizations. His work has been featured in community events, heritage forums, church networks, and cultural archives across the diaspora.

Topics: African American genealogy and DNA research; Pan‑Africanism and diasporic identity; Black family history, education, and civil rights; storytelling, memoir writing, and historical recovery.

Booking inquiries: jarrettjjackson@gmail.com
Press kit: available upon request.

Publication link: From Bondage to Beacon (ISBN Services Books)

“Every page is a return home.” — Educator, Louisville, KY
“Jackson doesn’t just write about history—he raises the ancestors.” — Reader review

Explore the legacy. Reclaim the memory. Begin your journey with the books of Jarrett J. Jackson.