…..She’s Just Rose
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Rose Jackson Flenorl, first African American to lead the 23,000 member Ole Miss Alumni Association, is known across the board as one who walks and talks openly about her deep rooted and sustaining faith in God.
Rose Facts:
Favorite Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-6,
Favorite Books: The Path Laurie Beth Jones, If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of the Boat John Ortberg:
Tough moment: IBM training when everyone in her computer programming class had a college career filled with computers except her:
Best advice to a woman juggling career and family: “You can’t be perfect at everything every day.”
Heroes: Her dad, Louis Jackson and her grandmother Lillie Jackson. |
She is a wife, a mother, a community leader, and a corporate executive. Manager of Social Responsibility and Ethnic Outreach for FedEx Corporation, Rose Jackson Flenorl, takes the term “multi-tasking” to a whole new level. Directing and implementing the company’s community outreach strategy in areas like Disaster Relief in the national and international arena requires a skill set that is unique—business savvy, a big-picture mentality, the confidence to make the right decision quickly, and a deep intuitive sensitivity to the needs of other people.
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There are many “firsts” on Rose’s resume. Probably, the one that launched her journey toward all the others was her place as the first child of Louis and Mertha Jackson. Both were graduates of Jackson State, school teachers who later became school principals and parents who invested themselves deeply in rearing four outstanding high-achieving children. In her first four years of life, Rose well remembers learning two major things that have been the foundation for everything else: one—love God and two—value education. |
Between a father who doted on her and a grandmother who wore her faith like some people wear skin, Rose developed what one friend calls a “Teflon” sense of determination to succeed, an unwavering dependence on God, and a healthy view of her own self-worth.
Hard Lessons
Born in Clarksdale in 1957, Rose grew up during the most intense period of racial tension. She was oddly sheltered from much of it for a while. She would occasionally overhear conversations among adults or see a clip on the 6 p.m. news and realize there were things happening in the world that she was not sure about, but within her own safe cocoon of family, church community, and an insulated group of friends at school, she was nurtured and encouraged.
Her dad once asked her, “Rose, did we instill in you a sense of self-confidence?”
Her reply was, “Yes sir, too much!”
Rose recalls two very early defining moments with a mix of tender tears and transparent childlike innocence as if they happened yesterday.
She was about eight or nine when she and her dad were making the familiar trip back to Clarksdale from a “checking-on-them” visit with her grandparents in Louisville. Rose asked for an ice cream cone as they passed through Ackerman. Her dad stopped, walked up to the window, and ordered an ice cream cone. The man at the window used a racial slur as he said firmly that he would not serve Mr. Jackson. Rose recalls that her dad said quietly, “I will take it around back,” meaning he would stand at the back door to get an ice cream cone for his daughter. The man at the window repeated his original statement.
“That was the first time Daddy was forced to explain racial discrimination to me,” says Rose. “I could not quite conceptualize why he could not get me that ice cream cone.” Rose looks back on that experience and realizes how demeaning it was for her college educated father who prided himself on the way he took care of his family. But on that afternoon, Louis Jackson, with no overtones of judgment or bitterness, explained to Rose in a way that her young mind could comprehend that all white people were not that way. He told her that all during her life she would find “good” and “bad” in people of every color, and most importantly, no one else’s opinion had the power to define Rose Jackson. “He also said that as long as I had a little bit of self confidence and a lot of faith and was willing to work hard, there was nothing I could not accomplish. And he expected no less of me.” Rose had never before that moment or since that moment considered herself “less than” anybody else.
She has, however, gone back to that conversation many a time when she hit a bump in the road or had a negative experience where she felt her race had played a part. “I don’t think parents sometimes think that when you say something like that to a young child they really hear it, but they do. I have never forgotten what my daddy said and I have always remembered the word ‘expect.’ I almost had a responsibility to cultivate and use whatever talents God had given me. I have also never stopped looking for the great people and the great relationships. I have never eliminated anybody because of race. I think it has been to my advantage.”
Faith Became Real
Not long after the ice cream lesson, Rose experienced the second defining moment of life at a revival at the Clarksdale Mt. Moriah C.M.E. Church when she accepted Jesus as Lord of her Life. It was customary for all of the church attendees who had not been formally baptized to sit down front each night on what was known as the “Mourner’s Bench.” Rose, one of the youngest, sat each night listening to the preacher. She had been told by several older members of the church not to feel pressured because she was so young. There would be other opportunities when she might better understand what accepting the call was all about.
Rose took their advice to heart, but on the last evening, when the altar call was given, she just knew God was speaking to her heart and she wanted to go forward. But the voices of those who had assured her she was too young to really understand were battling inside her. The service ended, and the church members began to exit.
Rose, with a stricken look on her face, began to leave when a church member noticed her and said, “Rose, what’s wrong?”
With tears streaming, Rose replied, “I was supposed to get up. I was supposed to go forward. God called me, and I didn’t get up.”
Mrs. Ross ran to the door of the church, screamed to those who were leaving, “Stop!” Church was reconvened and Rose Jackson joined the church. “I have never forgotten what a horrible feeling it was to get up and walk away knowing God had called me, and I had refused to come.”
Rose became astute at discerning that soft “God” voice within her soul.
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It has become a well known fact among Rose’s fellow executive committee members of the Ole Miss Alumni Association that Rose is not shy about praying. Fellow committee member Jon Turner says everyone teases her a little about her “semonettes,” but adds, “They were heartfelt and inspiring to say the least.” He jokes that her successor may have to seek ministerial guidance to follow in Rose’s footsteps.
Choosing a College
When she was a sophomore in high school, the court decision was rendered that moved her from her comfortable cocoon to the previously segregated Clarksdale High School. She drew from those things that had been instilled in her by her father as she joined clubs, tried out for cheerleader, participated in everything she could, and graduated as Valedictorian of her class.
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The decision to attend Ole Miss was a surprise even to her. Jackson State had been sacred ground for her parents. Her mom had been elected Miss JSU in 1954. Rose had been to ballgames and alumni meetings her whole life and it was almost certain that she would follow in her parents’ footsteps. Then she attended a Mississippi Achievement Conference at Ole Miss in 1975, a program designed to attract minority students.
Rose initially signed up thinking she could miss a day or two of regular school, but when she got there she discovered a journalism department second to none and a networking opportunity that she did not think she would find anywhere else in the state. Her dream was to be a top-notch journalist.
She attended question and answer meetings with other African American upperclassmen who did not sugarcoat anything. They were frank about the pros and cons of attending Ole Miss, which was at that time 95% white. She weighed it all and decided this was the school for her. Rose reasoned that if racial discrimination existed, she could deal with it now or she could deal with it later. The students and the faculty were enormously supportive. And Rose’s “Teflon” self esteem prevailed.
She never looked back. Despite a few bumps in the road—all of which she considers defining moments that made her stronger in every way—she has never regretted her choice. Rose was elected to the Homecoming Court and as a Campus Favorite during her sophomore year. Her GPA put her in every possible honorary, and everybody on campus knew Rose Jackson.
She remembers walking though the Student Union her freshman year and noticing the pictures of the Hall of Famers on the walls. There was William Winter, Trent Lott, and others. One day she just mentioned to the friends around her, “Wouldn’t it be great to be in the Hall of Fame?” Her friends laughed and said, “Rose, nobody up there looks like you.”
Rose remembered her daddy’s words and refused to be discouraged. She had a new goal. And she did a very typical Rose-thing. She studied those pictures, wrote down their names and the years they were named to the Hall of Fame, went to the library, dug through the yearbooks, discovered the clubs and honoraries they had been part of, and noted their paths from committee members to officers to President. She selected a few of the same clubs, joined them and chose the same path. Rose Jackson made the 1979 Hall of Fame in her senior year—another “first” since nobody hanging on the wall “looked like her” till then.
Interesting note—her daughter Lillie, an Ole Miss Hall of Famer in 2007, hangs not so many pictures down from her mom.
Rose laughs that one of her main goals when she chose Ole Miss was to be selected as a cheerleader. She never made it, but her only real “heart-hurt” was losing her bid for Miss Ole Miss her senior year. She lost in a run-off and felt that her race had played a part. “I was not as prepared to lose as I thought I was,” she says.
But Rose, in Rose-fashion, went to her room, cried a while, settled down and began to look around her room at the posters plastered all over the walls. Bible verses like Philippians 4:13, Psalm 91, and many more were everywhere she looked. She put everything in perspective based on those things that had been instilled in her—those things she still believed because her daddy “said so.” Rose forced herself to think of the more than 1000 votes that had been cast for her rather than the number who had chosen her opponent. She says, however, as she dried her tears and prepared to go back into the world she had a passing thought about fading into the background. She questioned, “Am I going to have to deal with this the rest of my life? Will there be a time when people say, ‘this is just Rose’—when people like me because of my personality and my race is not even a factor? I could avoid all these issues, Lord, if I just didn’t choose to try for a leadership role.”
That very same year, Glamour magazine selected her as one of their “Top Ten College Women in America.” When Glamour called one of her journalism professors to verify her list of activities, they were astounded—by both Rose and the university they thought was stuck somewhere pre-1960. She had racked up 21 honors and belonged to 33 clubs and honoraries. Everyone wondered when and if the girl slept!
For Rose, the trip to New York, the feature in a national magazine, the publicity and the notoriety and the doors that opened because of it, were an affirmation of something she had picked up from her grandmother. You just never know what is around the corner when you trust God. A closed door may not be a closed door at all.
Richard, Rose, and Lillie
Rose’s husband of 27 years, Richard Flenorl, an account executive with Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, is a native of Duncan, Mississippi, and a graduate of Birmingham Southern. He was a basketball star who had attended Coahoma County High School where Rose’s father served as principal. When he ran into Rose while they were both working in Memphis soon after college graduation, it did not take long for him to know she was a keeper.
Husband Richard, Daughter Lillie, and Rose |
They both laugh at the conversation between Richard and Rose’s father when he went to ask for her hand in marriage. He was expecting a few questions, a short set of instructions, and big blessing…about a ten minute event. After all, Richard was the son of a Baptist minister. He was definitely “good husband material.” But Rose’s father kept him for about two hours.
At the end of the day, Louis Jackson gave his blessing along with an “out clause’ for Richard. He told his son-in-law if Rose was spoiled, he would take responsibility for that flaw, but that if Richard ever decided he had erred in marrying her, he should bring her back where he found her and her dad would be there to take her back. |
In twenty-seven years, Richard says, he has never even considered it. “I respect her for her faith in God, her determination to achieve whatever she sets out to achieve against all odds. I have seen her live it time and time again. I also see her begin each day in prayer and end each day in prayer.”
Richard cites the Serenity Prayer as Rose’s constant—she prays to change those things she can and to accept those things she can’t and for the wisdom to discern the difference.
Two careers side by side, two ambitious, bright, and attractive young people—Rose and Richard could easily have had colliding egos on many an occasion. Both came to their marriage, however, products of strong and committed families. Give and take and shared responsibilities were things they had both observed from their earliest days, so, from the very beginning they never divided chores into “his” and “hers.” Whether it was grocery shopping, cooking, doing laundry, or running car pool—they accommodated each other and kept family a priority.
Daughter Lillie, a communications assistant for Governor Haley Barbour, says she realized from her earliest memories that her mom was doing a phenomenal juggling act. She also recognized harmony between her mother’s walk and her talk. She liked the kind and respectful way her mom treated others and the way she pushed herself to excellence in her job. Lillie learned to push herself as well. She also learned to handle the things she had control over and to leave the rest to God—an attribute handed down from her great grandmother Lillie to her mom and now to her.
Always the Leader
On the day in 2008 when Rose Jackson Flenorl stepped forward to take the helm of the Ole Miss Alumni Association, there seemed to be a prevailing sense of connectedness and love among the 500 alumni who packed the crowded room. Many had known in her trail-blazing student days, and many had met her later through alumni activities. All came to wish her well and to witness history. The Ole Miss Alumni Association with its under 5% minority membership, was installing its first African American President—their much beloved Rose.
Jackson’s Jon Turner was in the crowd that day. He had known Rose since their college years and had begun to count her a close friend in recent years. As a past president of the alumni association, he chaired the nominating committee that selected Rose. It was an especially poignant moment for him personally. Jon says proudly, “It was easy to put forth Rose’s name that year…being our first African American President was really not even a significant part of the discussion.” She had been “just Rose” to the entire committee for a very long time.
Rose was introduced and stepped to the podium. Her friend Becky West says, “At the end of her speech, there was not a dry eye in the room. It was not meant to be an emotional speech, but it was a from-the-heart-speech. Rose was sweet, genuine—everything about her tone and her demeanor was just so real. On the surface, people may look and think her journey has been easy, but it hasn’t been. But that day, she only talked about being blessed. She has a way of weaving her faith into everything. That’s just who she is.” The thunderous applause that followed was no big surprise to Becky. After all, it’s hard not to love authenticity.
