You could call Joyce Jackson George’s life a kind of “Horatio Alger story.”
She didn’t have many advantages starting out. She was reared in Edgewood Homes, a low-income government housing project on Akron’s west side; but, through hard work, she became the first woman judge elected in Summit County.
Born on May 4, 1936, she’s the daughter of Raymond and Verna Jackson. Jackson graduated from West High School in 1953. She started college, The University of Akron; but, like many women in the 1950s, she got married, had a child and dropped out of school. When her marriage failed, she moved to New York City with her young son and worked as a secretary. Two years later, she was back in Akron, reconciled with her husband and had another child. But her marriage failed again.
This time she went back to The University of Akron to get her degree. She majored in Education, a degree that assured her a job, something that this young single mother needed. From 1962 to 1966, she taught first grade at Miller and Crouse schools.
George, however, had other career plans. At night, she attended The University of Akron’s Law School. In 1966, she graduated and started a new career — this one in law. From 1966 to 1973, she was assistant director of law from the city of Akron.
In 1973, she started on a slightly different career path — in politics. That career has not always been successful. In 1973, she tried for a seat on the City Council but was overwhelmingly defeated when the Democrats made a clean sweep in that election. In 1974, she was elected to the Summit County Charter Commission.
Then in 1975, at the age of 39, she became the first woman judge elected in Summit County. She defeated the former county prosecutor and three others to win the new Akron municipal judgeship. It was quite an accomplishment for the kid from the west side who had once worked as a butcher’s assistant (and at Isaly’s and Firestone) to get by.
George always seemed to keep her options open. In 1976 and 1980, she ran for the Appeals Court — and lost. In 1978, 1986 and 1988, she ran for the Ohio Supreme Court — and lost. But that doesn’t mean she ignored her duties on the municipal court. In 1979, she ruled on the “Debbie Does Dallas” case and found the film “obscene.” She was popular enough in 1981 to be re-elected to the muncipal court. In 1982, she moved on to the Court of Appeals.
These successes caught the eye of a new Republican president in the White House, George Bush, who named her a U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio. “There’s only 93 of them in the whole United States, so it is very prestigious,” she said.
Described as a moderate Republican, George is popular in Summit County party politics. She served on the county’s Republican Party’s Executive Committee from 1994-1996. In 1996, she was back on the election trail, this time running for Congress against popular Democratic Representative Tom Sawyer. She lost — soundly.
These days, George is a visiting judge in the Court of Common Pleas. She also does arbitration, mediation, writing and lecturing. Not bad for a kid from the west side of the city.
–Casey Moore