Biography

Professional Experience: Community Development Practitioner. Political Experience: Senator, Mississippi State Senate, 2004-present. Robert L. Jackson serves as Treasurer of the Quitman/Tri-County Federal Credit Union, a community development financial institution with over $4.3 million dollars in total assets and has lent over $11.75 million dollars since inception in August, 1981. This credit union was founded by Robert himself and others in the Quitman County Community while he served as a John Hay Whitney Foundation Fellow from 1981-1983. Since March, 1987, Robert L. Jackson has served Chief Executive Officer of the Quitman County Development Organization, Inc., a private non-profit community development corporation serving the needs of poor and low income people similarly situated in Quitman, Tallahatchie and Panola Counties. He was an elected official having been elected to the Quitman County Board of Supervisors representing District Two in 1988 and served until 1995. He serves as Founder and President of the 21st Century Investment Club, August 4, 1998. Robert founded the Big River Housing Development Corporation in 1991, QCDO Child Development Center in 1995, the Quitman County Youth Credit Union Program in 1996, and serves on a number of non-profit boards of directors on a number of other organizations on a local, state and national level. He was selected as a Fellow to the prestigious W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Kellogg National Leadership Program in 1993, where he studied leadership theory and practice from 1993 to 1996. He served as an advisor to the 100 Concerned Black Clergy to start the newly formed Good Works Foundation in Jackson, Mississippi in 1999-2000. He has participated in the establishment of a number of other community development corporations, both on a local and national level, all dedicated to eradicating poverty, hunger, powerlessness, and hopelessness of poor, low income and people of color. Robert established the QCDO/Callie R. Woods High School Scholarship Fund in 1998 and currently capitalized at $40,000.00, it provides scholarships to deserving graduates from the Quitman County area. He is currently enrolled as a student in the Delta State University, Executive Masters of Business Administration Program in Cleveland, Mississippi. He holds a B S Degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern Mississippi, Associates Degree from Northwest Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi. He has done further studies towards a Masters in Community Economic Development at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and is a third and final year student in the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions- Community Development Credit Union Institute held at the Southern New Hampshire University, formerly the New Hampshire College.