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Black History Spotlight: Dr. Hilliard Lawrence Lackey 56 years and counting

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Tatyana Ross
Editor-in-Chief

Hilliard Lawrence Lackey, Ph.D. sat down to speak with Flash Editor-in-Chief about his upbringing and the journey that led to his over 50-year span of service to Jackson State University

Lackey was born on Oct. 9, 1942 in Marks, Miss., a small town located in the Mississippi Delta, where his family lived on a cotton plantation as sharecroppers. He knew there had to be more to life than working in cotton fields all day. 

Lackey attended Friendship School located in rural Quitman County.

“I had two teachers, Mary Valentine Johnson and Solomon Benson and they were not college graduates. They might have taken classes but I’m reasonably sure they did because they spoke so well,” Lackey said. 

He added, “Where I was, you went to church on Sunday and we had funerals on Sunday afternoons in those days because you couldn’t miss work to do anything.” 

Lackey was always interested in higher education and in 1961, his high school teacher Leo D. Reed took him to Jackson State to take the ACT.

When his classmates were presenting which college they planned on going to, Lackey told the class he wanted to attend Memphis State University and the room just went dead silent before his teacher interjected. 

“And he just laughed at me and said, ‘They don’t want you there’ and he invited me and two other students along with him that same weekend to take the ACT here,” Lackey said.

Lackey admitted to never actually trying to get into Memphis State but he said he always fantasized about it.

“I read a newspaper everyday which was passed along from the plantation owner, The Memphis Press Scimitar,” Lackey said. “Everything we had in the Delta came from Memphis, so I was infatuated with Memphis and I wanted to get there.”

Lackey said that the day he took the ACT marked his first real time getting to see black people wearing such nice suits and dresses and he was inspired and described it as having instant role models. 

He admired all of his teachers but he said that Allen Brown, a chemistry teacher, is who he looked up to the most.  After taking the ACT he was invited to stay at Brown’s residence. 

Brown was more than just a teacher but he also filmed the sports games for the school. And after helping Lackey receive a position with student employment, he joined the staff of The Blue and White Flash as a photographer. 

“Teachers were bigger than life in our minds as students and we really held the teaching faculty in high regard. We thought they were something,” Lackey said. “And now that I am one of them I emulate those of the past.”

He added, “I want to just overwhelm students and innovate them with knowledge and my perspective of an open-minded person seeking the truth.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree from Jackson College for Negro Teachers, Lackey continued his education. 

According to Lackey, there were only three schools where African-Americans could attain a Ph.D.: University of Oklahoma, Indiana University, and Ohio State University. However, he managed to gain his Ph.D. from The University of Mississippi. 

Lackey became the first employee hired on Peoples’ staff holding the position of the Director of Alumni Affairs, and he has maintained a position at Jackson State for 56 years and counting.  

“I came on April 1, 1967 and that was 56 years ago. One of the smaller things in life is to be the longest serving employee of Jackson State,” he said. 

In 1967, the school was renamed Jackson State College and Lackey said that after Peoples took over as president he had goals to make Jackson State even better. 

“When Dr. Peoples became president, he asked all employees, especially faculty, to get their ‘meal ticket’,” Lackey said. “He wanted to strengthen the institution by strengthening the faculty.”

He added, “In those days you couldn’t get a master’s degree in Mississippi unless you got it from Jackson State, if you were black. And you couldn’t get above a master’s at all unless you left the state of Mississippi.”

Lackey said he is grateful for all the years he has dedicated to Jackson State because it has had a lot of influence on the man he is today. 

“Jackson State is F.U.B.U., for us and by us. We made this school. And a student should understand that nobody gave us this school. We made this school,” Lackey said.

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