Will E. Jackson

William Edward Jackson III (born February 13, 1945) served with Greenpeace in its early years (1975–77), as crew member on the first anti-whaling expedition, and as cofounder of Greenpeace San Francisco (the first GP chapter after Vancouver, BC). A pioneer synthesizer player (Serge, Buchla, Moog), Jackson was aboard the Greenpeace V as part of the media campaign to demonstrate whale intelligence, and to disrupt Russian whaling. Jackson played a large modular synthesizer that had been brought onboard, broadcast through underwater speakers, with the intention of communicating with whales through synthesized whale song.[1] He was one of six persons out of a rotating pool of 35 to remain aboard throughout the expedition. Bob Hunter, cofounder and first president of Greenpeace, credits Jackson with saving him from drowning at Triangle Island.[2]

Following on the success of that voyage, Jackson opened the San Francisco office of Greenpeace. With the assistance of Fund for Animals (Cleveland Amory, Virginia Handley), and eco-filmmaker Stan Minasian, and commercial pilot Al Johnson. Jackson launched a grassroots media campaign, struggling from a South-of-Market condemned hotel to gain volunteers and donations, in preparation for the first anti-sealing expedition, and the follow-up whale expedition of 1976. (Three years after he left, the chapter was embroiled in a lawsuit with Vancouver over a million dollars and rights; the outcome being the formation of today’s Greenpeace International). These accounts and others are referenced in Robert Hunter's book, Rex Weyler’s Greenpeace (Rodale, 2004), the Hunter-Weyler collaboration To Save A Whale (Chronicle Books, 1978), and The Greenpeace Story (Dorling Kindersley, 1989).

Prefacing his Greenpeace years, in 1970 as a multimedia artist he won a scholarship to California Institute of the Arts, but allegedly lost it when he offended his mentor Allan Kaprow. He moved on to Serge Tcherepnin's CalArts synthesizer workshop, and co-founded electronic music groups Cellar M with Naut Humon, and 'TO' with experimental percussionist Z'EV.[3] Later he performed with Ethership (Willard Van De Bogart, Lemon DeGeorge). Notably, he played synthesizer "whale music" with saxophonist Paul Winter aboard the GP-5, and at the "Save The Seas International Music Benefit", International Trade Center, Tokyo, 1977, with Z'EV.[4]

In the 1980s Jackson became interviewer/program producer for Miss Wire Waist of KPFK's Sounds of Jamaica (L.A.); and published Jah Guide reggae culture magazine. He recorded, published and broadcast speeches on apartheid by Jesse Jackson, Michael Manley, and Bishop Desmond Tutu; and interviews with Steel Pulse, Burning Spear, Big Youth, Mutabaruka, Ras Michael and Peter Tosh. Meanwhile, he managed a 25-year career as a maritime seaman, union captain, and then fatherhood. In 2003 he authored the "reggae" novel Flight From Babylon (Infinity). His second novel and Greenpeace memoirs are forthcoming.