Former Minnesota Spokesman Recorder publisher Wallace ‘Jack’ Jackman dies at 81

Between jokes, wet willies and one-liners, Wallace “Jack” O’Neil Jackman spoke in a way that let you know he cared. It was part of the quiet intensity of Jackman’s personality, which pushed him to show goodwill to family, friends and strangers alike.

Minnesotans mourned and shared fond memories of Jackman after he died in his Minneapolis home on Oct. 27 at the age of 81. He had cancer for several years.

Family say they will remember the former newspaper publisher as a “stick of dynamite” who formed connections between Minnesota and communities across the world.

“He was an amazing connector, a collaborator, and a innovator. He loved giving to his community, endlessly, through words or through an act of good,” his daughter Tonya Jackman Hampton said, adding that his influence reached to Kenya, Germany, Ireland and cities across the United States. “His willingness to connect was boundary-less ... he wanted to be a part of creating linkages between different places and find ways to help communities.”

Jackman was born in 1944 in Des Moines, where he was raised by his parents, Launa Newman and Wallace O’Neil Jackman. The family moved to Minneapolis when Jackman was 13, and he cared for his father, whose health was failing, and his mother and older sister Norma Jean Williams. Soon Jackman set deep roots in the North Star State, attending Central High School and meeting a girl named Lynda, whom he married at 19. Jackman never graduated, but daughter Dauhn Jackman says he was a full-time father for her and many others.

“The best way to describe my father is that he was a stick of dynamite. He was charged all the time [and] he loved helping people,” Dauhn Jackman said. “I had to share my dad with other people in the community because he was that guy. Everybody loved him, everybody trusted him.”

Jackman’s stepfather, Cecil E. Newman, became a mentor to Jackman and guided him to become co-publisher of the Minneapolis Spokesman and St. Paul Recorder, now known as the Minnesota Spokesman Recorder, from 1982 to 2006. He helped to modernize the paper, buying computers to publish stories online and moving print production to save money.

“He had ... a firetruck sent over to Africa because they were in need of a firetruck over there,” Williams-Dillard said.

According to Dauhn Jackman, the firetruck went to Kenya, and the recipients named the vehicle “Jack” in Wallace’s honor.

Jackman’s work stretched beyond Minnesota and the Spokesman Recorder. He founded a toy company, the YouthSpeak newspaper for high schoolers, and Black Pages, a directory of Black businesses across Minnesota. He connected with newspaper owners outside of the state, bringing him into social circles shared by rapper Ice T, comedian Redd Foxx and boxer Muhammad Ali.

Jackman’s legacy includes members of the peewee football league he coached in Minneapolis’ McRae Park. Thearie Downs II was 10 when he gathered with friends to play football there in 1972. Jackman was driving past but parked his car to run drills with Downs and the team. Soon, he was their coach. The team went on to lose all the games arranged in their first season. The next year, they went nearly undefeated.

“He thought of us all like his sons,” Downs said. “He really did take us under his arm and did the best he could to prepare us for what we’re dealing with now in this world as African American children, people, in this nation.”

“It was more like a family than just us playing football at McRae. ... We were going there because of Coach Jack,” Rucker said, adding that Jackman took players camping and to the circus while monitoring their grades with teachers’ help.

“He was a legend, one of the premier Black leaders of Minneapolis,” Rucker said.

Jackman continued forging connections as time passed, but his final years were hard. His wife Lynda died on Christmas Eve in 2016. He later broke his back and became vulnerable. In his last days, he often asked his kids: “Was I a good dad?”

“I said, ‘Dad, you have done everything that a reasonable dad and a brother would do to make sure that your children, as well as myself, were given the tools to make life easier,” said his son Christjon Jackman.

Jack Jackman’s family will celebrate his life at the Wilder Foundation in St. Paul on Nov. 14. The program is from 1-4, with virtual attendance available through Zoom.