Author: Reggie Jackson

This year marks the 95th annual celebration of Black History Month. It has actually been a month-long celebration since just 1976. Each year the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), established in 1915 by the founder of the annual celebration, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, establishes a theme for the celebration each year. This year’s theme is, The Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity. They say this about the theme: “The black family has been a topic of study in many disciplines—history, literature, the visual arts and film studies, sociology, anthropology, and social policy. Its...

Amazing as this may sound, I’m writing you a letter from the future. I can’t explain how this is possible. What’s more important than how this is possible, is the fact that I’m here because of your sacrifices. I just discovered in the last year (2019) that you volunteered to join the Union Army in 1863. I’ve read about the 180,000 brave Black men who served in the Army and 20,000 that joined the Navy in some of the history books. Not the ones I used in school though. Your valiant efforts have been mostly forgotten unfortunately. I want...

In 2005, a catastrophic hurricane named Katrina, hit Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana with a ferocity rarely seen. We witnessed the infrastructure designed to protect the city of New Orleans, fail miserably. It should have been a wake up call about the impact of disinvestment in Black communities around the country. Instead, it gave rich developers and the politicians that do their bidding, an opportunity to get rid of a great segment of the Black residents of the city. The Black people who gave New Orleans its unique “soul” were discarded and sent across the country as so-called “refugees.” The...

“The Negro in Birmingham, like the Negro elsewhere in this nation, had been skillfully brainwashed to the point where he had accepted the white man’s theory that he, as a Negro, was inferior. He wanted to believe that he was the equal of any man; but he didn’t know where to begin or how to resist the influences that had conditioned him to take the line of least resistance and go along with the white man’s views. He knew that there were exceptions to the white man’s evaluation: a Ralph Bunche, a Jackie Robinson, a Marian Anderson. But to...

“Though the Defendants successfully established the foundation needed for reforms, our analysis reported here is concerning and behaviors on the street must change in Milwaukee.” – Christine M. Cole Executive Director, Crime and Justice Institute Those words are from the City of Milwaukee Settlement Agreement Second Annual Report, conducted by the Crime and Justice Institute which has been given the task of monitoring the Milwaukee Police Department’s (MPD) compliance with the terms of the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in the Charles Collins, et al. v. City of Milwaukee, et al case which settled in June...