Irene Dobbs Jackson

Biography

Irene "Renie" Dobbs Jackson (née Dobbs, 1908–1999) was an American professor of French at Spelman College and a civil rights activist who helped desegregate Atlanta's public libraries, where African American patrons were only allowed to read books in the basement. Irene Dobbs was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1908, to Irene (née Thompson) and John Wesley Dobbs, an American civil and political leader. She was the eldest of the couple's six daughters, including activist and civic leader Josephine Dobbs Clement (1918–1998), opera singer Mattiwilda Dobbs (1925–2015), and educator June Dobbs Butts (1928–2019).

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