Rebecca Cox Jackson
Rebecca Cox Jackson | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 15, 1795 Horntown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | May 24, 1871 (aged 76) Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Founder, Black Shaker Community |
| Known for | Shaker Eldress |
| Notable work | Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress edited by Jean McMahon Humez |
Rebecca Cox Jackson (February 15, 1795 – May 24, 1871) was a free Black woman, known for her religious feminism and activism and her writing. Her autobiography was published in 1981 as Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress, edited by Jean McMahon Humez.
Jackson worked as a seamstress and cared for her brother's children until her religious awakening in 1830. She wrote that after this awakening, she received divine gifts including healing people, seeing the future, having visions, control over the weather, hearing God's voice, acting as a medium, and learning to read spontaneously. Jackson worked as an itinerant preacher before joining the Shaker movement, which shared her values of egalitarianism and celibacy.
In 1859, Jackson and her protégé and lifelong companion Rebecca Perot founded a Shaker community of Black women in Philadelphia. Jackson's relationship with Perot, which lasted for 35 years until Jackson's death in 1871, has been called "perhaps the most controversial element of Jackson's autobiography".