The Jackson house in Gary, Indiana, was tiny.
It sat at 2300 Jackson Street, and it was home to a big family. When the brothers practiced, their neighbors would crowd around the little house, looking and listening through the windows.
Those neighbors were hearing something special. In 1967, when Michael was eight, the boys signed with a small record label in Gary. A year later they signed with Motown, and in 1969 the family packed up and left Indiana behind.
What happened next was hard to believe. The Jackson 5’s first four singles all went to No. 1. Songs like “I Want You Back” and “ABC” were on every radio in America, and the little boy out front with the big voice was suddenly one of the most famous kids in the country.
So in 1971, two years after they’d left, the brothers went back to Indiana.
TV network ABC built a whole special around the trip and called it “Goin’ Back to Indiana.” It aired on September 16, 1971. There were studio songs, guest stars and silly comedy bits, including a pickup basketball game with NBA legends Bill Russell and Elgin Baylor. But the heart of the show was the homecoming concert, filmed in front of a sold-out Indiana crowd.
Michael was 12 years old. Here are the boys on that homecoming stage.
Michael and his brothers at their 1971 homecoming concert
That’s the Jackson 5 at full speed, with Michael leading his brothers through the hits. The special and the album that came with it used about half of that concert. The album went on to sell more than 2.6 million copies around the world.
Now for the part most viewers never knew.
The special was built around the idea of the boys coming home, and it played like a Gary show. But the sold-out concert in it wasn’t filmed in Gary at all. It was shot on May 29, 1971, at the Coliseum in Indianapolis, about 150 miles away from that little house on Jackson Street.
Gary didn’t miss out, though. Earlier that same year, the brothers did go home. They put on a concert at West Side High School in their old hometown, for the people who knew them before anyone else did.
When Marlon and Jackie went back to Gary in 2020, Marlon said seeing the old house and the sidewalks he used to walk brought the memories rushing back. And the neighbors who once leaned in by those windows could always say they heard the Jackson 5 first.