 The school was founded in 1970 as a segregation academy.A biography of James Meredith cited the school's creation as part of the campaign of massive resistance against the Brown v. Board of Education decision ordering racial integration of public schools.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".