Shut out of the agencies where she applied, Jackson found that the only way to land an interview was to put a non-ethnic name on her résumé. She refused to hide who she was. Instead, she turned those closed doors into the foundation of her own agency — claiming the title of Black Talent Agent when it wasn’t yet welcome — and grew a boutique operation into a full-service practice representing artists above and below the line.

That work made her a national figure — profiled in The New York Times’ 2019 feature on the uphill battles of Black agents in Hollywood, the only agent in the piece who owned her agency outright.

In the fall of 2019 she made history with a Writers Guild of America franchise, later adding a Directors Guild of America franchise. She became the first Black woman ever elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Talent Agents, where she served two terms and co-founded the ATA’s Racial Equity Task Force. Essence named her one of its 124 Women in Entertainment. She also co-founded the Black Agents Network and launched Jacksmacked, a distribution and streaming platform built for independent creators. Her agency has represented talent featured in Emmy-winning television, including two freshman series that each won an Emmy Award: Disney+’s The Crossover and Discovery+’s The Book of Queer.