Author: Reggie Jackson

CNN broadcast its highly anticipated Milwaukee-based episode of United Shades of America on June 9. The network referred to the episode as “Living While Black in Milwaukee.” The crew from CNN came to Milwaukee for a few days last October to film the segment. They interviewed me in Sherman Park, discussing the civil unrest of August 2016. I talked about the events and issues leading up to the incident that arose after the shooting death of Sylville Smith. I wrote an article about the topic back during the second day of the unrest. Lisa Ceasar, Chief Operating Officer for...

“For those of us who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those of us who don’t believe in God, no explanation is possible.” – James Cameron, on surviving a lynching The most amazing man I ever met, lived the most incredible life imaginable. James Cameron was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1914. He was forced to witness a lynching as a young child in Alabama. He survived a lynching in Indiana at age sixteen. Later he became Director of Civil Liberties for the state of Indiana, and opened up three NAACP chapters in the most Ku...

This column is part of the special series From Mississippi to Milwaukee: My Journey to 53206 by Reggie Jackson, that explores the 53206 zip code of Milwaukee in an effort to educate about the historical context and social process that drove the once thriving part of the city into its current problematic condition. “Milwaukee’s zip code 53206 has come to epitomize the social and economic distress facing inner city neighborhoods in this hypersegregated metropolitan area. “Milwaukee 53206” is a neighborhood of concentrated poverty, pervasive joblessness, plunging incomes, and mass incarceration – a neighborhood of “cumulative disadvantages,” each reinforcing the...

This column is part of the special series From Mississippi to Milwaukee: My Journey to 53206 by Reggie Jackson, that explores the 53206 zip code of Milwaukee in an effort to educate about the historical context and social process that drove the once thriving part of the city into its current problematic condition. “The prison population in Wisconsin has more than tripled since 1990. Wisconsin has the highest black male incarceration rate in the country. Half of African American men in their 30s in Milwaukee County have been in state prison.” – ROC Wisconsin, A Project of WISDOM Wisconsin...

This column is part of the special series From Mississippi to Milwaukee: My Journey to 53206 by Reggie Jackson, that explores the 53206 zip code of Milwaukee in an effort to educate about the historical context and social process that drove the once thriving part of the city into its current problematic condition. “After decades of soaring levels of homicides and drug violence, the country’s crime rate plunged dramatically over the last 25 years.” – The Atlantic, April 2016 Despite what has been said on the nightly news, levels of crime have been declining significantly nationwide since they peaked...

This column is part of the special series From Mississippi to Milwaukee: My Journey to 53206 by Reggie Jackson, that explores the 53206 zip code of Milwaukee in an effort to educate about the historical context and social process that drove the once thriving part of the city into its current problematic condition. “In little more than a generation, Milwaukee has morphed from an El Dorado of unrivaled opportunity for African-Americans, and a beacon for their middle-class aspirations, to a locus of downward mobility without equal among other big U.S. cities.” – John Schimd When my family arrived in...