Retired Pasco official Webster Jackson to receive CBC’s MLK Spirit Award

The choir of Pasco’s Morningstar Baptist Church has long been a part of Columbia Basin College’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

Webster Jackson and his wife, Ruth, joined with the choir for years as the Tri-City community honored King’s contributions to civil rights.

Today, it’s Jackson’s turn for some community recognition. His commitment as a civil servant and community member earned him this year’s MLK Spirit Award from the college.

“I’ve never done anything for recognition,” he told the Herald. “I never did anything expecting something.”

But those who know the longtime Pasco resident said it’s an overdue recognition of his role as liaison with the city’s black community.

“He never got ruffled,” said retired Pasco City Manager Gary Crutchfield. “He was always ‘go slow, talk, listen.’ ”

Jackson left a job as a draughtsman at Hanford to become Pasco’s director of urban renewal in the early ’70s.

The city was still healing from strained race relations during the ’60s as it sought to improve about 13 blocks of dilapidated housing in east Pasco, the same neighborhood where Jackson lived at the time.

“They were having problems communicating (with residents),” Jackson said of city officials. “(The residents) could talk to me. They would talk to me.”

Those living in all but two of the homes in that part of the city eventually agreed to buyouts and to be moved to other Pasco neighborhoods so those blocks could be redeveloped for commercial and residential use.

Jackson said he succeeded because he could show the city’s black residents that no one was out to get them — only to help them.

His unplanned long tenure in city government stretched for almost 35 years. He retired in 2006, having served in many roles, from block grant coordinator and assistant to the city manager to director of personnel and administrative services.

As the town’s first black administrator, he sought to connect city hall with city residents and make sure their views were heard — a goal straight out of Martin Luther King’s teachings.

“You’ve got to have the right people in the positions who care,” Jackson said. “They’ve got to be able to look across the lines.”

Jackson also didn’t want to see others turned away like he was when he first applied for a job with a pipefitters union soon after high school.

“The secretary took it and put it in the trash can,” he recalled of his paperwork.

CBC President Rich Cummins said he’s known Jackson for years, at work and with community organizations such as Kiwanis.

Cummins described Jackson as affable and charismatic, but also dedicated to others, be it through his work with the Boy Scouts, as an athletic coach or through service with his church.

“His legacy is as a role model,” he said.

Crutchfield said Jackson was instrumental in making sure every Pasco resident was heard, while staying in the background.

“It was never his name on anything,” Crutchfield said.

Jackson said he’s not keen on making a long speech today.

“I’ll keep it to 90 seconds,” he said. “I don’t want to take any time away from (keynote speaker Christopher Turner).”

Turner is a Tri-City-based motivational speaker, life coach, community advocate and spiritual leader.

He’s been involved in Leadership Tri-Cities and formerly led intervention workshops for at-risk women at CBC.

This story was originally published January 18, 2015 at 10:21 PM with the headline "Retired Pasco official Webster Jackson to receive CBC’s MLK Spirit Award."