Lydia Flood Jackson was a champion of women’s rights and suffrage in California for African American women and other people of color. The outspoken activist was the first black student to attend an integrated public school in Oakland, California. Flood’s mother, Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood, led the 19th Century campaign for desegregated education in California and founded the state’s first African American school in Sacramento in 1854.  Her father, Isaac Flood, one of the first African American residents of Oakland, California, also fought for education and equality for blacks. Lydia Flood was born in Brooklyn, California (near Oakland) on June 6, 1862. She attended the private school for blacks and other children of color in Oakland that her mother began in their home at 1334 Fifteenth Street in 1857. Her father, a member of the California Colored Convention Movement, challenged California’s segregation laws in the early 1870s, citing the recently enacted 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  His campaign proved successful when his ten-year-old daughter, Lydia Flood, became the first black student to attend John Swett School in Oakland in 1872. Flood continued her education attending night school at Oakland High School, and married William Jackson.  An entrepreneur … Continue reading Lydia Flood Jackson (1862-1963)