Mannie Jackson (born May 4, 1939) is the chairman and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, for whom he played from 1962 to 1964. He was the first African American with controlling ownership in an entertainment organization and international sports team. Jackson has been heavily recognized throughout his career including an acknowledgment as one of the nation's 30 most powerful and influential black corporate executives, one of the nation's top 50 corporate strategists, and one of the 20 African-American high-net-worth entrepreneurs. Early life Mannie Jackson was born to Emmet and Margaret Jackson in Illmo, Missouri. He was born and lived in a boxcar. He was raised in an environment of great poverty, often living with 12 family members. His family then moved to Edwardsville, Illinois, where his father worked in automobile plants and his mother cleaned houses. Mannie was three at the time of this move to escape the Illmo floods. Mannie's father, Emmett, worked for the A. O. Smith Co. in Granite City, Illinois, which made large auto frames for General Motors. He also tended bar at the country club and gun club in Edwardsville. He worked two jobs while studying to be a teacher at Shurtleff College in Alton. Mannie adds, "He was an inspiration to me. ... Here's this guy who came out of the military after the war, had three kids, worked two jobs, went to college, and he did all this in the most racist part of the world you can be in. He never lost his drive." School segregation ended in Edwardsville just before Mannie Jackson went to high school. He was among the second group of black students to enroll in Edwardsville High. The town previously had an all-black high school called Lincoln. Jackson comments, "There were seven of us, four guys and three girls. Some of them were traumatized by this. It all points up the amount of waste that residual racism caused, the waste of human resources. If I show my Honeywell card, they look at it and figure I have an important job with a major corporation. They nod and smile. If I show my Globetrotter card, they want me to come home and meet their family. This is ours—our heritage, something that's uniquely African-American." In 1989, Jackson visited the Edwardsville YMCA during an opening of the new addition. He said, "I remember the 'Y' of the early '50s as an