By Matthew Robi, The Seattle Medium
As Reagan Jackson tells her story, the seeds of her career as a writer were planted when she was only eight years old.
One day in first grade, Jackson’s entire classroom was uninterested and falling asleep during their assigned class reading time. Rather than yelling at the class of bored children, her teacher tossed out all the books and handed each student a bound notebook. She told them that they were going to write their very own stories instead.
“I came home and I said, ‘Mom, I’m going to be a writer!’ And it just really stuck. I was like, ‘Oh, I know what I’m supposed to do with my life,” Jackson said recently.
She now has a B.A. in creative writing, a master’s in international education and experience writing for organizations, such as the now-shuttered Seattle Globalist, where she began her career in journalism, and the South Seattle Emerald. Jackson has written three poetry books, as well as two children’s books and most recently released “Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist.”
The Seattle-based writer is also a feminist, educator, podcast host and co-executive director of Young Women Empowered (YWE).
YWE is a non-profit organization in South Seattle with a mission to “cultivate the power of diverse young women to be creative leaders and courageous changemakers.” YWE believes in healing in community and connection through lived experience, featuring programs such as mental-health workshops, sexual assault prevention workshops and career days.
Jackson’s book “Still True” was published by Hinton Publishing, a startup in Seattle that focuses on historically underinvited communities. Jackson describes her book as a time machine into the history of Seattle over the past 10 years and her experience and thoughts within it.
When releasing a book filled with opinions on controversial topics such as objectivity, Black reparations and reproductive rights, most authors might be nervous about potential criticisms. But not Jackson.
“What’s cool about this being a time capsule of 10 years is, it’s an evolution. And maybe some things that I really emphatically said with my chest ten years ago don’t resonate with the person who I am now,” Jackson said.
“But I actually feel fine about being transparent about that. And I think it’s healthy. And I stand by who I was. But that doesn’t mean I have to live in who I was. I get to grow and change and evolve.”
Maggie Block, Hinton Publishing’s deputy publisher, defines Jackson as someone who “does a really good job when it comes to walking the walk and talking the talk when it comes to things like social justice and intersectionality.” Although Jackson is an author, the majority of Jackson’s time goes into YWE and guiding BIPOC youth.
Jackson said that as part of some programming she led, she learned that nine out of 11 girls in the group she was working with had been sexually assaulted. “You hear these statistics. Like one in four women in some point in their life will be raped or assaulted. But it’s one thing to know that number and another thing to have youth just casually disclose that.”
In many of the stories she heard from the nine young girls, there was a revolving issue of society’s conditioning of young women to always say yes. Society has brainwashed young girls to have this idea of a radical selflessness that places their own safety, emotions and feelings below the desires of others.
Some of the girls weren’t even aware that saying no was an option, Jackson said. Many of these young women were never given the tools to differentiate politeness from being a sitting duck waiting to be mistreated. To address this, Jackson created a workshop where the youth were trained to vocalize their emotions and firmly stand up for themselves.
“We did this program. I, like, got in their faces. I made them scream at me. They hated it. They cried and they were pissed at me… Six months later I got a call from one of the youths saying ‘I did it. I didn’t get raped.’”
Jackson added, “This is a really hard job. And I’m tired. And it’s long and it’s stressful. But yes, I’m here because I see how much it changes young people.”
Sarah Stuteville, who became acquainted with Jackson during their days with The Seattle Globalist, said Jackson looked to her in the beginning of her journalism career for guidance. “And very quickly we became peers,” Stuteville said, laughing.
Stuteville, who was a co-founder of The Seattle Globalist, said: “Reagan is a warm, generous person who is curious about people and life all the time. And she also pairs that with being sturdy and frank in her opinions and in her beliefs and in her values in a way that I truly think is rare.”
Reagan Jackson is someone who has been pouring her heart and soul into the future of Seattle for many years. It’s not easy and it’s not always fun but despite this she shows up. Day after day. Program after program and book after book. Jackson continues to show why Seattle is lucky to have her.