Dr. Andrew Chesteen Jackson – Known as the Most Able Surgeon in USA, Out of Black Wall Street

Once upon a time in Black Entrepreneur History there was an African American man named Andrew C. Jackson who was known as the most able Black surgeon in the world by founders of the Mayo Clinic after his extraordinary work in the surgical field of medicine and contributions to modern medicine in the United States of America, coming directly out of Black Wall Street.

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Andrew Chesteen Jackson was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1879 to parents Talgarie and Sophonia Jackson, the son of a father who was a skilled barber and also a police captain_[4]. His mother was a housewife. He grew up with a few siblings who were all very close in age, and they grew up in a city called Shelby, Tennessee. Later on in life, the whole family moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Andrew Chesteen Jackson’s Education

Andrew Jackson attended medical school and was a working young man at the same time. He attended Maharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee and graduated in 1904. While there, he specialized in allopathic medicine and surgical procedures for women and caring for chronic disease. He had become a licensed M.D. (medical doctor) in the states of Oklahoma and Colorado, and chose to live and practice in the state of Oklahoma[1].

He owned a home and was married to a woman named Julia.

In or around 1904, he opened his own practice in Guthrie, Oklahoma at the age of 25 and then later he opened another practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1915. Dr. Andrew C. Jackson operated his own allopath medical facility in Tulsa’s Greenwood District (Black Wall Street) on 503 North Greenwood Avenue[2]. It was at this time that Greenwood was booming, and Dr. Andrew C. Jackson played a major part in making Black Wall Street successful with his medical skill and entrepreneurial endeavors by creating instruments used in medicine that progressed the world of medicine as a whole.

Dr. Andrew C. Jackson had become a very prominent figure and very influential in the medical community even outside of Greenwood, serving both black and white patients due to his unique, superior skill as a surgeon, also being regarded by the Mayo Brothers, founders of the Mayo Clinic, as being “the most able surgeon”. According to Circulating Now in an interview with one of Dr. Jackson’s family members, Dr. Jackson was the vice president to the National Medical Association for the state of Oklahoma. He sat as the VP all the way up until his tragic murder during the massacre of Black Wall Street, which was mentioned in the Journal of the National Medical Association.

Brutal Death of Dr. Andrew C. Jackson During Black Wall Street Massacre

Dr. Andrew C. Jackson was brutally murdered when a mob of white men came through the Greenwood District, setting businesses and homes with families still inside aflame and shooting the Black people who lived there to death. Dr. Jackson was one of them.

It is recorded that Dr. Jackson’s home was set aflame and as he ran out of his home announcing that he had no weapon, the was shot to the ground dead on May 31st of 1921. He was only 42 years young, leaving behind his distraught wife. According to his great grand nephew in an interview he did with The Guardian, his uncle was “shot in the stomach and bled out”, and his father rode on horseback for five days so that he could locate his son and give him a proper burial, and not be thrown in the Arkansas river like had been done to many of the deceased Black people during this massacre_[3].

There was a Tulsa Doctor’s Relief Fund was initiated to contribute and specifically discuss with great sorrow the murder of Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, M.D. It was addressed to the Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Professions of the United States.

“All of us were horror stricken a few days ago to read accounts of the terrible catastrophe that befell the colored citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Indescribable suffering has been and is being experienced by these victims of mob rule. Our professional men of Tulsa, from all accounts, were eagerly sought out as prey of the mob. Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, who had been active in local, state and national medical societies, was wantonly murdered.”— Tulsa Doctors Relief Fund, Philadelphia, PA, June 28, 1921

There was also a Report Obituary Committee out of Louisville, Kentucky on August 26st of 1921 that eulogized Dr. Jackson while detailing his murder in these words:

“Dr. A.C. Jackson was ruthlessly slain, with his hands held in the air as an evidence of his defenseless condition. In the Tulsa riot on the morning of June 1st, 1921.
At the time of his death, he was the State Vice-President of Oklahoma, Ex-Secretary of the State Association, and one of the best known men of that State. He was a splendid surgeon, and the friend of all, and while we bow our heads in mourning to the action of the mob in taking from our midst one of our most eminent men, we raise our voices in protest, and through courage will fight on for the principles of right and justice, that his blood will not have been shed in vain.
To his bereaved widow, we extend our heart-felt sympathy and brotherly encouragement, and to his colleagues in the fight for the future, we cosign the names of these and all others of our Pan-Medical organization who have died without our knowledge to the sacred memory of their brothren and comment their souls to the safe and watchful care of Him who gave them, and leave them until we shall meet in the Great Beyond.
We recommend that the business be suspended, and that all rise and a silent prayer and a spoken word of prayer be offered as tribute.”

His murderers were never found because no one was looking for them and nor were they prosecuted, allowed to carry on with their lives as if they didn’t take the lives of many people, including the life of Dr. Jackson.

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Sources

[1]Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804-1929 [database on-line].

[2]Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

[3] The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/31/tulsa-massacre-descendants-callout-stories

[4]Year: 1880; Census Place: Shelby, Tennessee; Roll: 1279; Page: 154B; Enumeration District: 142