She participated in sit-ins and was OKC's first Black female TV journalist. Her work isn't done yet

Joyce Jackson is a mother and grandmother who's satisfied with the life she lives and says she still has plenty to do.

She's done plenty already.

As a child during the late 1950s, Jackson joined other members of the NAACP Youth Council led by Clara Luper in Oklahoma City to desegregate lunch counters at John A. Brown, the Kress Five-and-Dime, and Anna Maude's Cafeteria, among others.

Jackson, the publisher of the Shades of Oklahoma magazine and the president and chief consultant of Communications Plus, is a life-long civil rights activist who became the first Black American female journalist on Oklahoma City television .

As a young adult, she joined Luper and others to help Oklahoma City's Black sanitation workers strike for improved rights , pay and promotion opportunities.

She was hired by John Harrison at KOCO-TV as an executive assistant in 1970 and was encouraged within months to co-host several different community programs before eventually joining the station's news desk. She worked there until leaving in 1982 to take a job as a public information officer at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Jackson also was engaged by the National Institute of Corrections to consult about media relations with other corrections programs across the country, an opportunity that ultimately led to her employment in 1997 at the Illinois Department of Corrections as its communications director.

More: 65 years after OKC's sit-in, Clara Luper's 'radical love' still reverberates today

She returned to Oklahoma in 2005, and today remains involved in promoting civil rights by helping to lead projects to restore Oklahoma City's Freedom Center , to build a Clara Luper Civil Rights Center right next door and to establish a memorial remembering the monumental sit-in at Katz Drug Store on Aug. 19, 1958, an event leading to years of sit-ins that eventually transformed the city, the state and nation.

Jackson is in the Oklahoma Black Journalists Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame .

Here is some of what Jackson recently told The Oklahoman about her life's experiences and her goals today.

Q: You split time as a child growing up between living with your mother in Oklahoma City and your father in already-desegregated California. How did that make you feel, and what did you tell your Oklahoma classmates about it as you sought the same rights here?

A: It was an entirely different type of world. I just remember being surprised when they sent us to school out there because there were all kinds of people in the classes, and no one really made a big deal out of the fact you were [Black]. I remember a young Hispanic boy in California asking me if I drank a lot of coffee because I was Black. I told him, 'No, my grandmother doesn't let me drink coffee.' I thought that was so funny. Coming back to Oklahoma was different. I never could understand how adults would want to call us names and not want to be next to us, just because of the color of our skin. Mostly, I would tell my friends it wasn't like that in California.

Q: Your mother forbade you from participating in the landmark sit in at Katz Drug Store on Aug. 19, 1958, because she feared for your safety. But you participated in other sit-ins that eventually desegregated lunch counters at John A. Brown, Kress Five-and-Dime, other stores and Anna Maude Cafeteria. What motivated you to be involved?

A: Clara Luper. She always made history so interesting, and always made us feel like we were a big deal and that we would make a difference. But I was so shy, it was frightening. She told us all the time, 'Hold your head up. Speak up. Walk like you know where you are going and talk like you know what you are talking about.' I realized later our protests were some of the most peaceful in the country, at the time.

Q: You returned to Oklahoma in 1969 from California to find Luper helping to organize a strike of Oklahoma City's Black sanitation workers as they sought better pay, benefits and the same rights other white city employees enjoyed. You decided to become involved, as well. What was that like?

A: I walked picket lines and took part in a couple of big marches, including one that we called Black Friday when the students from Douglass High School came downtown and joined. I remember when the National Guard surrounded us in a circle when we were at the front of the line with Mrs. Luper. They had their guns out, and I remember all of us looking at each other, with Mrs. Luper telling us to just remain calm. That was the most frightening thing I ever encountered. They couldn't lock up everybody, so we were allowed to disperse after Mrs. Luper talked with them.

Q: Unlike the efforts you have discussed so far, the role you played in helping to desegregate Oklahoma's television news market happened differently. Did you do that intentionally?

A: No. I was working at the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Oklahoma County, helping its executive director seek local employers' support to prepare our students for careers at their businesses. She asked if I would check with a television station, suggesting I start with my favorite. At the time, it was KOCO because me and my son loved to watch Ho-Ho the Clown (Ed Birchall) and Pokey the Puppet (Bill Howard). I met John Harrison, a vice president at the station, who hired me to be his personal assistant. I gave station tours, helped people coming to the station for interviews and other assorted tasks. John was always teaching. One day, he called me in and asked me if I had ever thought about being on television. Just the idea people from all over would be looking at you frightened me so much, I started crying. But we did a lot of practicing, and he decided to put me on the air.

Q: Once on the news desk, you were asked to do a documentary about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. My generation never learned about it. Had yours?

A: Black [people] were not taught about it either. People didn't discuss it. John told me his father was a journalist for The Oklahoman, and he gave me something his father had written about it. That helped me capture a love of history. Oklahoma's in particular was unique, given how it was settled by First Americans, then Black [people] before the runs, when many lost what they already had settled. People need to know about our history to prevent past mistakes from being made in the future.

Q: You remain an active civil rights promotor today through your efforts to help lead the restoration of the Freedom Center, to build the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center and to establish the downtown monument remembering the Katz Drug Store sit-in. Why?

A: The restoration of the Freedom Center and construction of the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center celebrates Mrs. Luper's legacy — all the things she was part of — and to correct history because for the longest time, people would say North Carolina sit-ins were the first in the nation. But ours happened two years earlier. We want to adequately remember and celebrate the advances we made through not only the Oklahoma City sit-ins, but other civil rights efforts that happened across our state. Today, we are trying to motivate our youngest generation to get out there to vote and fight for our rights, against today's idea of doing away all with the work we did to open the doors for people to be treated equally.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: She participated in sit-ins and was OKC's first Black female TV journalist. Her work isn't done yet