Jacqueline Hutto-Cooper
Jacqueline Hutto-Cooper (Elaine-Fortson) transitioned from this life on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. At her bedside were her nieces Connie Cook Dallas and Tamla Sturdivant.
Jacqueline Elaine Fortson was born on December 6, 1947, in Chattanooga. She was the last child of the late Sallie Mae Jarvis (Fortson) and John Lee Fortson and the youngest of her nine siblings (Betty Joe, Eddie Louis, Juanita, Walter, John, Lois, Sarah, and Mary)
Young Jacqueline (affectionately known as Jacque to her family and friends) was the only one of her siblings not to have known her father, who died before her birth while still in the womb. Jacque's deep love and affection for her mother, Sallie Mae, defined her childhood and her entire life. Jacque educated any and everyone throughout her adult life on the immense sacrifices of Sallie Mae and that generation of Black Southern Women known as "The Help" that made the ends meet for their families by laboring in the homes of privileged White folks within the segregated apartheid South. Jacque spoke often of a Mother who came home many evenings tired yet unbroken and determined to stir her children to higher ground. All of Sallie Mae's children graduated from High School, two graduated from Nursing school, two were veterans of the military, and four were college graduates (of the college graduates, one became an Engineer and three entered the teaching profession).
Jacque spoke very fondly of her formative years at East 5th Street Elementary School under the leadership of James Jenkins. Jacque always paid homage to Ms. Bee, who first got her engaged in playing Tennis at the Lincoln Park Recreation Center. Jacque spoke with immense pride about Lincoln Park being one of a kind for southern Black folks who would travel immense miles to enjoy amusement fun that was mostly off limits for Black people within the Jim Crow South.
Jacque's foundational Christian education and spiritual nourishment took place at New Monumental Baptist Church. She remembered a young Rev. C.T. Vivian leading devotional service within her elementary school while he was pastor at Wiley Memorial Church before he entered the Civil Rights Movement full time. Jacque would later educate her sons on the immense sacrifices of her generation in smashing Jim Crow in Chattanooga-namely her vivid lived experience of helping integrate the buses in Chattanooga during her Junior Year in High School.
Jacque graduated Valedictorian of the Riverside Class of 1965 and journeyed to Atlanta, as a freshman at Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), where her sister Mary attended Morris Brown College nearby. Jacque educated her sons on being present within the Ebenezer Baptist Church in early 1967 when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., came out in opposition to the Vietnam War. Jacque spoke with fervent passion about walking for many miles in the streets of Atlanta, alongside her sister Mary, behind the horse-drawn carriage of a slain Dr. King in the Spring of 1968.
Upon graduating from Clark College in 1969, Jacque became an educator within the Chattanooga City School System. Jacque journeyed back to Atlanta in the early 1970s, married and had two sons, the late Harold Winston Hutto and Jonathan Wesley Hutto, Sr. Jacque was a stay at home mom leading PTA's and Cub Scout Troops until the middle 1980's when she became an adult educator and later a real estate broker founding her own company J. Fortson Reality in the late 1980s. Chattanooga was always "home" for Jacque, where she would journey often, ultimately bringing her son Jonathan with her in late 1993 to finish High School at Brainerd in 1995.
A devoted Spiritualist and child of God, Jacque had relationships in all walks of life, teaching her sons to never look down on anyone unless you're going to stop and pick them up. Jacque is survived by her son Jonathan, Daughter in Love Yolanda, two grandchildren (Jonathan W. Hutto, II, and Nadira H. Hutto), two sisters (Sarah and Mary), a host of nieces and nephews, and a generation of Jim Crow survivors who helped make America and the world better.
Jacqueline's remarkable life will be celebrated on Saturday, June 14, at 3 p.m. in the chapel of John P. Franklin Funeral Home, 1101 Dodds Ave., Chattanooga, 423 622-9995.