The school was founded in 1970 as a
segregation academy. At the time of its founding, a local member of the
White Citizen's Council remarked that schools like Jackson Prep were established because the "educational results of such forced interracial congregation are disastrous for children of both the white and black races". A 1973
Yale Law Journal article characterized Jackson Prep as "second generation segregation academy" since the student body lacked both black and low income white students, but unlike so called "rebel yell academies", employed competent staff offering a complete academic program and sought the same elite status as traditional upper class day schools in the rest of the country. As of 1978, Jackson Prep was not a charity and operated as a profit-making institution. In 1981, Jackson Prep headmaster Jesse Howell said the school was established because the "upheaval" white parents experienced from desegregation "caused a need for stability, for a place to send their children. We've tried to provide that." Howell claimed not to know why Jackson Prep had never enrolled any black students. In a 1995 article in the
Clarion Ledger, Howell said that "there was resistance from both sides" to
school integration. Gail Sweat, a student who had attended Jackson Preparatory before transferring back to a racially integrated public school, said that, in 1970, "initially there was panic, and most whites bailed out and went to private schools." However, leaving Jackson Preparatory was what "prepared her to live in a diverse society." Sweat added that, after leaving Jackson Preparatory "it wasn't that big a deal, blacks and whites going to school together." In 1999, it was reported that Jackson Prep requires pregnant students to withdraw from the school. As of 2014, Jackson Prep's student body remained over 97 percent white. In 1989, Jackson Mayor
Dale Danks was similarly criticized for enrolling his daughter in Jackson Prep. In 1999,
Madison County school board member Lee Miller acknowledged that his decision to enroll his children in Jackson Prep may have come across as "nebulous," but insisted the decision was not motivated by racial bias. In the article, Miller explained that the decision was the result of prayer, stating that if someone did not have a relationship with God, they might think this reasoning 'nebulous,' but if they did, they would understand completely. ==Football==