In Profile: Vickie Jackson, Vice President of The Bond Hill Community Council

Vickie Jackson says a few words often: “family”, “community”, “togetherness”. Always together. Talking to the Vice President of The Bond Hill Community Council for two wide-ranging hours this past weekend, it’s clear that her priorities are on rebuilding the sort of unity she found in Bond Hill, when she moved here as a child in the late 1960’s. The community then boasted a number of restaurants and shopping establishments that she rattles off with ease but more than that she says, “Bond Hill was fun.” Children played together easily with each other and parents surveilled the play of all the youngsters. She graduated from Woodward High School in 1977 and fondly remembers that her class having over 400 graduates at Music Hall. “There was never an element of fear,” Vickie tells me.

This changed during the 1980’s. “The old-timers stayed but a lot of their [adult] children came back in whatever condition they came back — on drugs, on alcohol, or with a half-dozen kids.” This breakdown of family led to the breakdown of community. Litter and crime began to proliferate and many people who could leave, did leave. That exodus included Vickie, who moved to Silverton.

Brandon K. Jackson c. 2004, provided by Vickie Jackson

What brought Vickie Jackson back to Bond Hill was the worst kind of tragedy — and the most gracious and giving sort of resolve. In 2006, Vickie’s son Brandon ended his life after returning home from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. “Iraq changed Brandon,” she says, and the gregarious, handsome, compassionate and charismatic young man she had raised and cherished slipped away. Brandon transitioned from this life but gave others the gift of life. And Vickie, even in her grieving, redoubled her efforts and resolve to be with those she knows and loves. So she came back to the home of her mother, here in Bond Hill.

Her service on the Bond Hill Community Council arose out of what she joyfully calls an “Oh Hell Naw” ethic. Oh hell naw to crime, chaos and fear. Oh hell naw “to leaving anyone behind.” I ask Vickie what she wants to see in Bond Hill 10-20 years from now and she replies, instantly, “A culture of caring.” I ask what she wants to see from the Bond Hill Community Council and she replies, “A hunger for progress.” She urges “unwavering transparency” with more work to educate, increase membership and usher in an era of a newly engaging community council.

Brandon and Vickie Jackson, c. 2004

As we end our talk, Vickie says something as prophetic and powerful as any words spoken from a Sunday pulpit: “I am not going fail. I am not going to fail myself. I am not going to fail Bond Hill. I am not going to fail Brandon. We are not going to fail. We are going to treat each other with love and respect.”

Amen.