The George A. Jackson Black Cultural Center offers students a place to grow in community, not just during Black History Month but all year round.

“The George A. Jackson Black Cultural Center was founded to serve as a hub for Black cultural identity, education and understanding between diverse communities at Iowa State University over 50 years ago,” said Denise Williams-Klotz, the assistant director of Multicultural Student Affairs at Iowa State.

According to Williams-Klotz, the Black Cultural Center is a space for students to use for events, programs, meetings and to simply come together.

Williams-Klotz also explained the importance of the name behind the center—George A. Jackson.

“The BCC was renamed to honor Dr. Jackson’s legacy because he was so instrumental in the success of generations of Black undergraduate and graduate students,” Williams-Klotz said. “Dr. George A. Jackson was a person pivotal to the success of generations of [Iowa State] students of color over a 31 year [Iowa State] career.”

The Iowa State Multicultural Student Affairs website offers a full biography of Jackson. According to the biography, Jackson arrived in Ames in 1978 after traveling from Oakland University to be Iowa State’s first director of minority student affairs, which is now known as the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.

According to Williams-Klotz, one of Jackson’s other contributions to Iowa State and its students was his work with the TRiO program. According to the Iowa State TRiO website, TRiO offers educational opportunities for income-eligible and first-generation American students, no matter class, race or background, to help them get a higher education.

Williams-Klotz also noted that Jackson served as the assistant dean in the Graduate College at Iowa State, where he continued to advocate for underrepresented students. According to his biography, it was then that Jackson founded the Graduate Minority Assistantship Program (GMAP). The program, which is still alive and well today, offers funds that can be requested from the graduate college.

One award from the Graduate College is named in honor of Jackson and his passion for supporting minority and underrepresented students. According to the Graduate College website, the George A. Jackson award “aims to promote ethnic diversity and inclusion of graduate students from populations historically underrepresented in American higher education.”

“That list is incredibly abbreviated,” Williams-Klotz said. “Dr. Jackson was a force for innovation, change and advocacy. He retired in 2009 and sadly departed this life a few years ago, but his legacy lives on across campus and in the heart[s] of alumni around the world.”

Williams-Klotz continued to state the tremendous effect that Jackson has on current Iowa State students through the use of the Black Cultural Center. According to Williams-Klotz, the Black Cultural Center continues to be a space for students of color to connect in community.

“The most important thing the BCC has been in its 50 plus years of existence, in my opinion, is a space,” Williams-Klotz said. “From the early days where it was a hub of social life for Black students, a place one might hang out between classes or on the way home, to now when the use is more connected to student groups having a place to gather for social, academic or business reasons.”

Williams-Klotz said that a space for community can be more than a space—it can be a home.

“The BCC’s staircases and dormer windows are more than part of a house, they are, for many, a place where they can find home in the community of others,” Williams-Klotz said.

Student groups can reserve a space at the Black Cultural Center for free here.