Still True

Reagan Jackson is the most important writer you might not have read yet. If a cat has nine lives, Jackson’s living ten. She’s in a Veracruz hotel room watching the Ferguson protests unfold on CNN. She’s in Seattle’s CHOP district in the summer of 2020 leading a Black healing event. If she’s not starting up a study abroad program for students of color or summing up with stunning clarity the epic drain of a “well intended white person” (see Page 81!), she’s learning to box, dance burlesque, and surf. And whatever country Jackson travels to or whatever theatre, comedy show, or lecture she attends, she listens, introducing us to voices we don’t often hear who speak of oppression, liberation, and hope. Reagan Jackson’s stories in Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist drop us right onto the fault lines where plates are converging, where our culture—our very world—is being forged into something new. And with brilliant insight, candor, and vulnerability, Jackson shares the moments with us. We are there—right there—with her, as she shows us with precision and grace who we are and who we have yet to become.

~Theo Pauline Nestor, author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too)

In a world desperate for the space/time to respond to change and to reflect on deep continuities, Reagan Jackson’s Still True offers a glimpse of new and renewed forms of connection. Like the mixtapes she evokes in the title, she weaves an emotional and intellectual mosaic out of the fragments of though-in-the-moment. Formally innovative, aware of the ancestral resonances, and just plain smart, this is a book that testifies to a mind and spirit helping us think our way to something beyond the mess we’re in.

~Craig Werner, Author of A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America

Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist is a vibrantly, herstorical, rageful ritual of essays. Each ritual a gift “…for Black people to come together in the privacy of our own communities to laugh, and cry, to dance and love and enjoy. “It will be difficult for readers to choose their favorite experiential track from Jackson’s mixtape of essays but it won’t be hard for readers to perform each ritual, hands holding hearts first, and profusely nodding along. ~Anastacia-Renee, Writer, Educator and Archivist

Reagan Jackson’s mixtape of articles passionately personifies black culture and values, providing intimate experiences of racism, inequity and the self.

Reagan takes us across the world, delving into political injustices and complicated cultural experiences; and into her neighborhood, the gentrification encroaching, the resistance on her lawn, and the powerful voices of the undervalued community that she is a part.

There is a rawness, an openness to Reagan’s words that draw forth compassion, making one feel the humanity and connection she is so fervently trying to foster.

Reagan Jackson’s Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist creates an understanding not only of the systemic issues that plague us but of the compassion that is needed to change the tides that be and to heal the psyche that endures. Reagan compels us to be better, to do better.

~Jini Palmer Digital Media Manager Seattle Town Hall

Never was there a better time than right now to read Reagan Jackson’s masterful body of work in Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist. What you read in her collection of articles is what happens when a Black journalist does not compromise their identity to do their job. Jackson is a reluctant journalist but we should all be grateful for her contribution to the industry. Her commitment to tell the stories of communities with them and not about them is everything that is missing in our ecosystem today. The book is an examination of life in the Pacific Northwest for BIPOC. Jackson opens the curtain to reveal the impacts of gentrification, economic inequality and the struggle for #BlackLivesMatter in a region where allyship means making room for white people in all spaces. Jackson also masterfully writes about the Black experience abroad and why it’s necessary for Black people to become globally engaged. Finally, Jackson excavates her own truths about her body, her beauty and healing from trauma as resistance. Jackson is a talented and gifted writer whose words are moving, challenging, and needed.

-Sonya Green, journalist

1. This book is evidence of how Reagan Jackson is changing journalism for the better.

2. In this book Reagan Jackson is showing journalism what its future needs to look like. You’re welcome.

3. Every journalist should read this book.

4. Reading this book affirmed so many of the feelings I’ve had about the rules of “good journalism:” the myth of objectivity, the bias against first person. Good journalism for who? This book is not only an innovative form of autobiography that tracks Jackson’s life through her coverage of Seattle news, but it’s a welcomed foray into what is possible for the field of journalism.

~Virgie Tovar, author and activist

When Reagan Jackson writes, be prepared for straight talk. She does not hold back when talking about race, black lives, gender, white privilege, police accountability, the kind of hot button issues that make people uncomfortable.

Like it or not, that’s a good thing. Reagan lives and works in Seattle’s south end, where people of color are struggling to live because of gentrification, rising property taxes along with dual pandemics of racism and now, Covid-19 that has revealed even more the racial disparities in America today. Our nation is being pushed like never before to see its original sin of inequality as the coronavirus devastates communities of color. As you read her stories, her Southend Mixtape, you will see a changing Seattle, a majority white city where people of color are still struggling to have a voice, and where a new kind of multi-media journalist and writer like Reagan Jackson are not just covering a community but living there to fully understand the changes underway. What you will find in Reagan’s mixtape is powerful, and at times, humorous writing about everyday herself, life, human foibles, complicated issues, race, justice, injustice, and hope for a better Seattle and world. Keep on kicking ass, Reagan!

~Enrique Cerna, broadcast journalist

In dark and confusing times, Reagan Jackson’s writing is a compass pointing toward liberation.

~Alex Stonehill, Co-Founder of the Seattle Globalist, Head of Creative Strategy for the UW Comm Lead Program

Reagan Jackson is such a good writer and made me feel like you were telling me these stories over a cup of coffee or tea! You have a way of being matter of fact about very heavy and serious topics - making it more accessible to readers.

~Sharon Maeda, activist and radio manager

Reagan Jackson writes from the crossroads of journalism, memoir, activism, and everyday life in these raw and wild times. Jackson is a pioneer for what “writing the first draft of history” looks like in an intersectional world and a model of how media can help build the communities and worlds of the future. Whether she’s talking gentrification, Black joy, or burlesque her voice speaks directly to the moment—moving target that it is—and is always raw, funny, challenging, and relatable. She’s one of the most important voices in Seattle, and one all of America needs now more than ever.

~Sarah Stuteville Co-Founder of the Seattle Globalist

In Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist, Reagan Jackson bears powerful witness to a city she aims to shape into a truer and more human reflection of its peoples. Her essays provide necessary testimony that shores up our collective resolve in perilous times.

~Kristen Millares Young, author of Subduction

The great Robin Kelley calls Still True “an abolitionist take on space and power—a desire to make the space we call earth habitable and bountiful for all life,” a beautiful description that rings 100% true. The intensely local pieces uplifted me, depressed me, but I add an enthusiastic thank you to Reagan Jackson for reminding us of the value—for People of Color, especially for Black Americans—of knowing the world beyond the USA. Jackson’s take on the world is lifesaving, one of the many gifts of this fine book’s authentic journalism.

~Nell Irvin Painter, author of Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over and Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University