LANCASTER, Pa. — In honor of Black History Month, the NAACP honored a pioneering black educator who made history in Lancaster.
On Sunday, the organization honored Hazel Jackson for her long, distinguished career as an educator.
She moved to Lancaster in 1952 and spent years trying to practice her career.
Racial inequity prevented her from following her profession.
However, in 1961, she began to teach in the School District of Lancaster, the first African American woman to hold a teaching position.
"Sometimes we think about what is our goal? What is our purpose in life? And people search for years trying to figure it out, but she knew from the very beginning what her purpose was," said Amber Holland, Hazel Jackson's granddaughter, "But she had to keep fighting to get back to it to make her mark, to allow her words and her light to be shone."
Mrs. Jackson was also the first black professor at Millersville University.
She died in 2014 at the age of 87.
