Maurice Jackson teaches in the History, Black Studies and Music Departments at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and Doha. Before coming to academe he worked as a longshoreman, shipyard rigger, construction worker and community organizer.
His Halfway to Freedom: The Struggles and Strivings of African Americans in Washington, DC, is published by Duke University Press (2026). He has written Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality (2025). He is author of Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism (2009); co-editor of DC Jazz: Stories of Jazz Music in Washington, DC (2018); African-Americans and the Haitian Revolution (2010); and Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754-1808 (2017).
Jackson wrote the liner notes to two jazz CDs by Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, Steal Away: Spirituals, Folks Songs and Hymns and Come Sunday.
Twice he served as Special Assistant for DC Affairs to Georgetown University President Jack DeGioia. He was appointed by the Mayor and the Council of the District of Columbia as the first chair of the DC Commission on African American Affairs (2013-2016). In 2017, he presented a report, “An Analysis: African American Employment, Population & Housing Trends in Washington, DC,” to the Mayor and elected leaders of the DC government.
He was a member of Georgetown University Slavery Working Group that made recommendations about how GU should atone for its slave-owning past. Jackson was a 2009 inductee into the Washington, DC Hall of Fame; the Council of the District of Columbia passed the "Dr. Maurice Jackson Resolution for outstanding contributions to scholarship, music, and public service in DC and Beyond" in 2025 and named a day in his honor. Among the places he has lectured include England, France, Italy, the Dominican Republic, Turkey, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Cuba, Grenada, Vietnam, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Russia, the Ukraine and throughout the US.
Jackson has also made large contributions to Washington research institutions. He donated his 3,000 movement pamphlet collection, “Radicalism in Progress” to Georgetown University as well as his archive on the 1919 and 1968 riots in Washington. He donated his Black Pamphlet Collection to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. He has also donated collections to the African American Civil Rights Museum in Washington and to the Rosenwald School Library in Gloucester, Virginia. He donated his rare collection of Cuban Jazz records to the Felix Grant Jazz Archive at the University of the District of Colombia.
Prof. Jackson teaches courses on the Atlantic World, Black Studies and African American History, Islam and Black Americans, Washington, DC, Jazz, Music and Culture, Freedom and its Concepts, Black Lives Matter, Black Intellectual History, Civil Rights, the Harlem Renaissance, Cities, and Revolts, Riots and Revolutions.
Jackson and his wife live in Washington, DC.
Academic Appointment(s)
- Primary
- Associate Professor, College - Department of History