His 1934 publication The Colored Sacred Harp was later recognized by scholars such as Doris Dyen[1] and New Grove writer Joe Dan Boyd[2] as an important document of early twentieth-century shape note singing practice.
When he was sixteen years old, he left home and took work as a farmhand in Dale County, Alabama, where he settled and eventually earned enough to become a farmer and landowner on his own.
He took an interest in the Sacred Harp tradition around the time he moved to Dale County, but his new employer would not allow him to attend the local singing schools, so he learned the technique from his peers instead.
[2] Among the pieces in this collection is the Jackson composition "My Mother's Gone," which was eventually adopted into the Cooper revision in the late twentieth century.
Walker, paid out of pocket to print 1,000 copies of the text; Jackson then sold the book door-to-door and via singing conventions and educational programs.