Clifford Earl Jackson was born in New Jersey in 1927. He grew up in an African American family during the Great Depression, a time marked by significant class disparities. In his early youth, he moved to New York. Clifford Jackson served as a radio operator in the Navy at the end of World War II and witnessed the devastation in Nagasaki.
Studying at an art school in New York, Clifford Jackson had notable teachers, including the satirist, graphic artist, and expressionist Georg Grosz. In New York, he socialized in jazz circles, interacting with musicians like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Miles Davis, and Dexter Gordon.
A scholarship from the John Hays Whitney Foundation brought Clifford Jackson to Spain at the end of the 1950s. There, he lived in an artist colony, forming friendships that eventually led him to Sweden.
In Sweden, Clifford Jackson was accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He rented his studio in an artist quarter on Bjurholmsgatan in Södermalm, Stockholm. There, he became part of the so-called Södergruppen in the 1960s and 1970s.
His experiences growing up during the Great Depression influenced his societal engagement and, most importantly, his art.