‘The Night I Proposed, I Hadn’t Planned It … I Just Got Down on One Knee And Asked Her to Marry Me’

 BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times JACKIE AND JACQUES AUSTIN Live: Helena Married: Aug. 2, 1997 Met:  April 1992. The Deltas were having a party at the Student Center on the UAB [University of Alabama at Birmingham] campus. “I saw her at the party, and I made an intentional decision to introduce myself. I was head over heels… Jackie was taller and brighter than everyone else, and she had a glow that outshined anyone else in the room,” Jacques recalled. “I was actually on my way out of the party, and he grabbed my hand and my first instinct [led me to question] ‘who is this grabbing my hand?’ Then I saw his necklace had a charm on it that spelled his name and that was the first time I saw his name spelled that way. And as I was trying to make out in my head how to pronounce his name, I noticed he was tall and handsome but earlier that night, I had [decided] I didn’t want to date anyone, I just wanted to have my head down in my books. At that time, we didn’t have cell phones like they do now, and he...