When Ida O. Jackson arrived from Texas in 1926, Clovis schools were segregated, and she began teaching African-American youth. Starting with two students in Bethlehem Baptist Church, she encouraged early education and by 1935 taught 35 students in a one-room schoolhouse. The school, named the Lincoln-Jackson School to honor her and the nation's sixteenth president, had enrollment of more than 100 by the 1940s. She also taught Sunday school, opened her home to people needing housing, and helped launch the Federated Progressive Club for black women working to improve the community.