Rebecca Cox Jackson is My Favorite Religious Top Part 2
Meet Rebecca Cox Jackson and go read part 1 silly !
Where did we leave off? Ah right, Anne Lister being my favorite conservative top, who is a highly complex person, a landlord who kicked out liberals and radicals and has a ride-or-die fan club that acknowledges that she has accomplished so many great things and wrote about the link between her sexuality and God in a way I have always related to, she is coined the first modern lesbian but I don’t know how I feel about that, Is there evidence of a lesbian other than Anne Lister before 1869? Yes plenty and many of them were Black.
Anne Lister was born in 1791, and four years later Rebecca Cox Jackson entered this world, in 1795.
Rebecca was a free Black woman, who lived an extraordinary life, she defied gender roles and believed like Anne Lister that God would rather her be in her true self. She lived with her partner Rebecca Perot till her death in 1871 when Rebecca Perot took her lover’s last name after Cox’s death. She was gifted, literally, she had magical gifts from God, well that’s the rumor at least, we’ll get more into the spooky stuff soon. Born outside of Philly she was a preacher and founded the Black Shaker Community of womanist lesbians who preached and practiced feminist religious practices.
In her younger teen years her mother had passed away and she helped her father care for her six siblings her family was heavily into the methodist church in their area, and Rebecca had always been religious and in a male-dominated religious system. She got married to a man a seamstress and was devoted to her religious community.
Spooky stuff: In the summer of 1830 there was an earth-shaking thunderstorm, which Rebecca hates thunderstorms, she prayed and prayed for the severity of the storm to lessen or to end her life just anything that would get her away from the storm! Lightning struck; she thought it was a sign of death, but it was like a rebirth and awakening.
She called this rebirth a gift of power. Which is the title of her autobiography with hundreds of her writings.
She said to have gained an inner voice, a voice she believed was celestial…God. After this storm she received gifts, unexplainable things happened to her, like reading and writing. Yes, Rebecca couldn’t read or write, and suddenly she could! She also stated she immediately had no attraction or desire to be with her husband and moved away from male-based churches which she was criticized for. She didn’t find her methodist church as a guide in her new life any longer. She separated from her husband and sought out a new spiritual journey.
The Shaker belief, saw God as both or multiple genders, equality and believed that all races can join their movement and spread the word of God.
Elizabeth Freeman is a scholar who has done research on the Shaker community. The Shakers were called this because the would dance and shake as connecting with God via prayer. Freeman states they used dancing to counter heteromarital hegemony in a chapter called “Shake It Off: The Physiopolitics of Shaker Dance, 1774-1856” in her 2019 book “Beside You in Time: Sense Methods and Queer Sociabilities in the American 19th Century.”
Freeman states “ Avoiding the rules that governed secular dance, which usually focused on partnering men and women, Shaker dance could serve to critique gender inequality and what might be called not just compulsory heterosexuality but compulsory sexuality.”
Since the thunderstorm and choosing celabcay refusing to abide by gender roles and having gifts from God the Shaker community was a calling for Rebecca.
Rebecca Jackson and her partner Rebecca Perot, moved around from New York to Philly looking for a more inclusive Shaker community. Many of these movements were in all great but in all very white centered.
In 1859 a couple years before the Civil War the two Rebecca’s founded their community of all Black Shakers. Centering Black woman theology.
I would coin Rebecca to be one of the first people in our history to amplify queer spirituality.
Rebecca lived with her partner for thirty-five years till her death in 1871.
Rebecca was a spiritual leader, a founder of a Black womanst spirtaul group, she believed in freedom and had countless of people join her movement, she is is a spiritual ancestor that began to truly live her authentic life being reborn at the age of 35. Which is inspiring in this way that it is never too late to reinvent yourself to find a new path and journey. Rebecca was born a free Black woman but I believe her freedom began when she found her community and a life with Rebecca Perot.
Rebecca took Jackson’s last name as one would do when you marry, she took over her partners mission and continued her legacy in the movement after Rebecca Jackson died. Alice Walker has been inspired by this pair, and even dedicated her book The Color Purple to the spirit which is in connection to the Rebecca Jackson and Celie.
There are so many Black lesbians and Black queer womanist who existed before and during many of our favorite white lesbians adventorus times, language is important and our first Black modern lesbians deserve their flowers.
-Christy
Thanks for reading friends, share share share!
I’ve been working on a lot, I don’t have a producer anymore for my pod because they’re in LA for the next few months :( sad stuff I know, but working on my other projects and will be having guest writers step in!
I hope you’re all enjoying summer and taking it easssyyyy!