While other students at Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were deciding what to do with their lives, Christy Davis knew she wanted to be involved in politics.
“She was a poli sci major, and she really got the philosophical concepts,” said longtime friend Cynthia Holly Jones, now a Baltimore City circuit court judge. They met on the first day of classes at Chatham, now a university, and remain close friends. “She talked about being a lobbyist. Most of us didn’t even know what a lobbyist did.”
But Davis knew, and she became an attorney to become a better one, capable of working for the programs and people she believed in, from urban renewal to candidates for office, to voting access in Georgia and New Jersey. Along with her husband, AME Bishop Reginald Jackson, she also served Georgia’s AME churches in the Sixth Episcopal District for eight years.
Born on March 24, 1964, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Eugene and Betty Jean Davis, Christy Davis Jackson, 60, died Nov. 30 at her home in Atlanta. The cause was an infection.
She “possessed a vigorous loyalty to her friends and her beliefs. She relished tough fights and long odds, not because she was belligerent but because she fiercely believed we had to defend the vulnerable,” said former Georgia state legislator and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. “Any disagreement about tactics could be discussed, but we could never dispute the mission: to do right by others.”
From 2016 until 2024, Christy was also the supervisor for the Sixth Episcopal District (AME) in Georgia, which includes 534 churches and 93,000 members, while her husband served as bishop. As supervisor, she directed the church’s organizational and operational activities, including the Women’s Missionary Society, advised her husband and strengthened women’s voices within the church.
Those who met Christy Davis Jackson knew “when she would walk into a room with that smile on, everybody would start smiling,” says retired AME Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, who remembers taking long car drives with Davis Jackson to visit churches. Taking care of the church’s missionary societies was one of Davis Jackson’s responsibilities, “and she was wonderful at it,” said Tyler Guidry. “She did it with joy.”
Vickie Hale, president of the Georgia AME Spouses’ Organization, said that under Davis Jackson, the group expanded to include “PK’s” — preachers’ kids — who often are saddled with unrealistic societal expectations. “Christy made sure her family and her parents were taken care of. And she assured us that we needed to practice self-care.”
Knowing her own mind and what she needed was evident during her college years, said Holly Jones. As a junior at Chatham College, Davis Jackson received a prestigious Truman Scholarship and spent a year at the London School of Economics.
After graduating from Chatham, she attended Rutgers University Law School in New Jersey. She became chief of staff and legal counsel for New Jersey state Senator Wynona Lipman, the first African American woman in the New Jerseystate Senate. Davis Jackson also chaired Jon Corzine’s, D-NJ, successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and became the state director for U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ.
In Newark, said Holly Jones, Christy pushed for funding for urban renewal, education and health policies. She met Rev. Jackson, who was involved in politics, said Holly Jones, and was working to end the practice of racial profiling by New Jersey State Troopers. They married in 2004 and have a son and a stepdaughter.
Working with senators and other politicians, helping them develop and pass legislation, allowed Davis Jackson to do what she had talked about since college, says Holly Jones. She had contacts across New Jersey. Her firm, Davis and Partners, worked on getting out the vote, handled crisis management for individuals and focused on urban renewal.
Also, from 2012 until 2016, the Jackson family served the 20th Episcopal District, which includes Malawi, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. In Africa, Davis Jackson worked on microloan projects for women and their families, building wells to provide clean water and providing scholarships from U.S. companies and philanthropists for students.
In August 2024, the Jacksons were selected to lead the Second Episcopal District, encompassing the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
In addition to her husband and parents, Christy Davis Jackson is survived by brothers Greg Davis and Doi Davis, son Seth Jackson and stepdaughter Regina Jackson. There will be a public viewing on Dec. 11 at 9 a.m. followed by a service at 11 a.m. at St. Phillip AME Church, 240 Chandler Road in Atlanta.
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