The Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation in Birmingham today announced it has committed $5 million to the Jackson House project at The Henry Ford in Dearborn.
The Jackson House is the Selma, Ala., home of Dr. and Mrs. Sullivan Jackson and served as a safehaven where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others worked, collaborated, strategized, and planned the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965.
The marches served as protests against the systemic racist policies within the south and raised awareness of the struggles Black voters faced.
It was in the Jackson House on March 15, 1965, when King watched President Lyndon Johnson’s famous “We Shall Overcome” speech. The speech announced the bill to be sent to Congress, that would later become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“The Henry Ford believes in the power of immersing our guests in the stories and artifacts that reflect ordinary people who did extraordinary things to change our world,” says Patricia Mooradian, president and CEO of The Henry Ford.
“This humble home represents a place of great change in our country. We thank the Erb Family Foundation for its support and generosity in helping this institution preserve this important structure and ensure it is experienced by millions of people from all over the world, every year.”
Jawana Jackson, the only child of Dr. and Mrs. Jackson, and the sole owner of the Jackson House, contacted The Henry Ford in 2022 and requested that her family home be permanently relocated to The Henry Ford’s campus.
After more than a year of due diligence, The Henry Ford acquired the home this year and is moving the structure this fall to Michigan where it will be permanently placed in Greenfield Village in 2026.
This lead gift will provide critical funding to not only help move the house to Dearborn but to support its reconstruction in Greenfield Village and raise its profile through on-site programming and extensive digital access in an effort to reach global audiences.
During their lifetimes, Fred and Barbara Erb, whose estate established the Erb Family Foundation, recognized the importance of the civil rights movement and the work of King’s work.
John Erb, president and chair of the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, explained the motivation behind the grant by saying.
“We believe this project comes at a time that resonates all too much with what our parents witnessed in the 60s, as our country is experiencing increasing efforts to erase Black history and the contributions that Black Americans, like those of the Jackson family and other civil rights activists. My parents would be so proud to see the foundation helping to uplift these stories and inspire a better and stronger future for this generation and ones to come.”
The Jackson House will eventually join the more than 80 historic structures in Greenfield Village that tell stories reflecting pivotal moments in our history. They include the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law, the laboratory where Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb, and the home and workshop where Orville and Wilbur Wright invented their first airplane.
For more information about The Henry Ford, which includes the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Greenfield Village, Ford Rouge Factory Tour, Benson Ford Research Center, and Henry Ford Academy, visit thehenryford.org/.
The Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, founded in 2009, advances environmentally healthy and culturally vibrant communities in metropolitan Detroit and the Great Lakes ecosystem. The foundation will award approximately $14 million in grants this year. For more information, visit erbff.org.
