The facility nurtured the careers of numerous performers, including Beah Richards, George Takei, Edward James Olmos, Nobu McCarthy and Forest Whitaker.
[1] When he enrolled in the High School of Music and Art, Jackson was able to escape the negative influences of his neighborhood and obtain a broader view of the world.
Unlike other arts organizations that catered to one ethnic group or another, Inner City operated under the concept of multiculturalism and provided assistance to a wide variety of cultural institutions.
This included Luis Valdez's El Teatro Campesino, the East West Players and the Bilingual Foundation for the Arts, founded by Carmen Zapata.
[7] In the wake of his death, playwright George C. Wolfe recalled how Jackson encouraged him to stage one of his early projects, "Tribal Rites, or The Coming of the Great God-bird Nabuku to the Age of Horace Lee Lizer."