Jackson's Ramblings....

Remember when we mentioned in many ways, we are coming full circle?  Here is another full circle moment.  Jackson Knight, of Jackson's Ramblings, was my neighbor on Camelia Drive in Monroeville, AL until I was 4 years old.  

Tonight, we want to introduce you to Jackson as we will be debuting Jackson's new book "Churches of the Black Belt - Wilcox County" on March 22nd at Moore Academy in Pine Apple, AL.  

Please take a minute and get to know Jackson...

I am Jackson Knight. I always say that I am a native son of native sons of rural Alabama. My family came to Southern Wilcox County in the early 1800’s. They settled in an area called Sedan which is North of present day Vredenburgh. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfathers are all buried at Reaves Chapel Church Cemetery in Southern Wilcox County. I was fortunate enough to get to spend a lot of time with my Grandfather Knight when I was young. He was born in 1906. He worked for the State of Alabama Forestry Commission from 1933 till 1967. In his last years working he was primarily a towerman. He manned Lookout Hill Fire Tower. I was able to go sit in the tower as a small child and learned so much about them and other things from him. As a preschooler I stayed with my great aunt who was born in 1896. Between her, my grandfather and grandmother Knight as well as my other grandparents I heard countless numbers of stories of life in earlier times and formed a love for history. Several people have told me that I seemed to remember things that happened before I was born. I guess I heard them so many times that I just knew them from the old folks telling me so many times. 

I always had a love for photography even from the time I was a little kid also.  I took hundreds of photos of about anything you can name. I would imagine that there are still some of my photos hanging in houses in Monroe County today. I sold a good many photos of some of the old churches and of wildlife. Life got busy over the years, and I got away from photography. About 2012 I started flying drones. First the very cheap toy ones that you had to fly inside because they were so fragile that a slight breeze would take them away. Then I bought a better one that could handle the wind and taking decent pictures. Immediately I fell in love with flying them and photography just came back to me so to speak. I started making videos of Fire towers and putting them on YouTube. I have over 100 videos on my Youtube channel. Jacksons Ramblings. I started to research the standing Fire Towers and realized that there were once over 200 standing in Alabama and now there are about 75 left standing. Almost all of those are unclimbable and are just rotten hulls. To this date I have photographed all but 4 that I know of south of US Hwy. 80 from Mississippi to Georgia. One of those four I recently found out about. It sits in the very southwestern part of Mobile County. Two more of them are now behind gates and are too far from the gates to fly the drone to. The other one is now privately owned. One of my long-term goals is to get to photograph all the ones left and then put their pictures in a book with whatever information I have on them. I have been responsible for getting three listed on the National Historic Lookout Registry. 

As long as I have been doing photography, I liked to document old buildings and such. It is addicting to me. I worked in the paper mill from 1978 till 2000. I served as a pastor from 1998 till 2023. I also owned a lawn service. I started slowing down with my lawn service in 2018 and completely retired from it at the end of 2022. I completely retired in 2023. Now doing what I am doing is basically my full-time job. I decided in the summer of 2023 that I was going to attempt to visit all 67 counties in Alabama and document the little, small towns. I started with the plan to use I-65 as the dividing line and that I would travel the areas east of I-65 to the Georgia line. Then I would do the same west of I-65 to the Mississippi line. I would leave home normally on a Tuesday and drive all day just looking. I would try to hit every little map dot town in a county that I could. I had a Dodge Caravan that I had made into a stealth camper. I would sleep in it and then go again. I would stay out normally one night and come back home. I would have so many pictures that it would take a couple of weeks to sort, file and share them. Then I would go out and do it again. On these trips I would normally run between 500 and 600 miles. I did this from the Florida panhandle all the way up to US. Hwy. 80. It took me four trips out. The last trip out I stayed out two nights and drove almost 800 miles. I was documenting churches, primarily older ones, and what many call rural decay. I had no clue how bad it really was. I realized that in every small town I went in there would be numerous gutted out rotting down buildings. I also started to realize how many churches there were that were vacant or totally abandoned. That was when I realized that I was in the Eastern Black Belt. It is also when I realized that I could stay in the Black Belt for the rest of my life and still not be able to document just the Black Belt. That is when I made the decision to refocus my attention on just the Alabama Black Belt. 

This is what led to "Churches of the Alabama Black Belt - Monroe County" and "Churches of the Alabama Blackbelt - Wilcox County".  Also, available are Jackson's Ramblings Volume 1 and 2.  

Jackson Knight, Jackson's Ramblings