Melodie Jackson

MELODIE JACKSON {[email protected]} was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1995. She is the youngest of eight children. After graduating from high school, she attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. While attending BYU, Melodie felt impressed to serve an LDS mission to which she completed her service In the Brazil Rio de Janeiro mission. Upon returning to Utah and studying American Studies with minors in Portuguese and Sociology, she graduated BYU in April of 2019. She plans to pursue a PhD in African American Studies in the fall of 2020. She loves to write poetry, study the gospel of Jesus Christ, understand the meanings of her black female body in various contexts, organize and advocate for her community, spend time with loved ones, and play basketball.

Skin of Garments

Articles/Essays – Volume 52, No. 1

Roundtable: The Black Cain in White Garments

Articles/Essays – Volume 51, No. 3

Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 209–211
Jackson explains “The Church refused to grant the Black body whole recognition and divinity. To Nephi, I was not fair and delightsome. To Joseph, I was a violator of the most sacred principles of society, chastity, and virtue. To Brigham, I was Cain’s curse. To McConkie, I was an unfaithful spirit, a “fence-sitter.” To you, I am colorless, my Blackness swallowed in that whiteness reclaimed, “a child of God.”