This Day in Henrico History: Sept. 25 – Future Henrico school superintendent Jackson Davis is born

Jackson Davis, an educator whose work in Henrico County would help shape a new approach to educating African American children throughout the South, was born in Cumberland County, Virginia Sept. 25, 1882.

Davis became superintendent of Henrico County schools in 1905. During his rounds of county schools that year, he visited the one-room Mountain Road School, where educator Virginia Estelle Randolph taught African American children during the era of segregated public education. Davis was impressed by Randolph's approach, which combined academics with practical instruction and efforts to improve the school and its grounds.

Their work ultimately attracted support from the Negro Rural School Fund of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation. In 1908, Randolph became the first Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teacher, establishing formal in-service training for African American teachers in Virginia. The approach developed in Henrico became a model used elsewhere in the South.

Davis left his Henrico post in 1909 and eventually joined the General Education Board, where his work focused extensively on rural African American education. He documented conditions in Southern schools through thousands of photographs that today form an important historical collection at the University of Virginia.

His record also reflected the limitations of the era in which he worked. Although Davis sought improved educational opportunities for Black students, Encyclopedia Virginia notes that he worked within the segregated system and did not advocate integration.

Henrico later named Jackson Davis Elementary School for him in 1962.

Sources: Encyclopedia Virginia; University of Virginia Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.