About Jenn
Jenn M. Jackson (they/them) is a genderflux androgynous Black woman, a lesbian, an abolitionist, a lover of all Black people, and an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University in the Department of Political Science.
Jackson’s primary research is in Black Politics with a focus on racial threat and trauma, gender and sexuality, political behavior, policing, and social movements. Jackson holds affiliate positions in African American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and LGBT Studies. They are a Senior Research Associate at The Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, as well.
Jackson is the author of the book BLACK WOMEN TAUGHT US: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF BLACK FEMINISM (Random House Press, 2024). The book is an intimate intellectual and political history of Black women’s activism, movement organizing, and philosophical work that explores how women from Harriet Jacobs to Audre Lorde to the members of the Combahee River Collective, among others, have for centuries taught us how to fight for justice and radically reimagine a more just world for us all.
Jackson’s first academic book project POLICING BLACKNESS: THE POLITICAL STAKES OF INTERSECTIONAL THREAT (expected 2026) investigates the role of racial threat in influencing Black Americans’ political behavior. Methodologically, they utilize quantitative analyses of survey data and experiments as well as qualitative analysis of 100 in-depth interviews with young Black Americans ages 18 to 35 to investigate both intergroup and intragroup differences in responses to and ideas about racial threat. Jackson finds that Black women are most likely to express concerns about police-based and intragroup threat. Comparatively, Black men vary drastically in their responses to threat depending on their sexual orientation, gender expression, and vulnerability to stereotypes.
As a recipient of many prestigious honors and awards, Jackson is a 2020 recipient of the Tenth Decade grant ($20,000) and the CUSE Seed Grant ($5,000) funding their book research.
Jackson has spoken at many symposiums, events, and conferences about Black Politics and Feminist scholarship and race politics in the United States including the Gender and Political Psychology Conference at Brandeis University in May 2024, the APSA Centennial Center Teaching & Learning Symposium on April 2022, first Annual Convening at the Frederick Douglass Institute at the University of Rochester in September 2021, the GenForward Data for Liberation “Contested Politics” webinar in October 2020, and the Race and the American Criminal Justice System webinar at Stanford University in June 2020. Jackson is also regularly invited to universities, social movement organizations, and community-based events to speak about policing, social movements, youth politics, gender and sexuality, and Black political behavior today.
Jackson is a columnist at Yes! Magazine and was a columnist at Teen Vogue during the early days of the Movement for Black Lives and the Trump Administration. They are a highly sought after writer for many online publications like Truth Out, Al Jazeera, Essence Magazine, Washington Post, The Lily, and many others. Jackson is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Jackson co-runs Colored Convos Media, LLC, a media company committed to elevating the work of Black and queer content creators. They are the co-host of the That Black Couple podcast, an honest look at Blackness, culture, and adult life. They also launched a new podcast in May 2025 called We Published! Beloved which focuses on Black and queer first-time authors.
Through their research and teaching in the academy, their work as an organizer and political educator in Black-led movement spaces, and their journalistic and book-length work, Jackson seeks to disrupt the status quo which demands silence from those who are most marginalized in society. In the traditions of women like Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, and Angela Davis, Jackson is a firm believer that it is the job of Black queer/trans/women academics to make space and hold that space for the fullness of Black experiences especially in the Ivory Tower, social justice, and publishing realms.
Jackson received their doctoral degree from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago where they also received a graduate certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Jackson earned an MA with honors in Political Science from California State University, Fullerton in 2011 where they later taught Political Science Research Methods and Black Politics.
In 2007, Jackson earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Sociology.
Jackson is a proud native of Oakland, CA (ancestral home of indigenous Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people) though they currently reside on conquered Onondaga Lands in upstate New York.
Work with Jenn Reach out now for writing and speaking engagements