Author: Reggie Jackson

Not long ago I began to more actively pay attention to the city I’ve spent most of my life in. I began to see things that had been right in front of me for years that I simply found no reason to pay close attention to. My mind is wired in such a way that I notice patterns. I don’t understand why that is the case, but it has helped me to see things that other people don’t necessarily see. There are things that are right in front of us everyday that we mostly ignore or pay little attention...

Black Americans did not abandon liberal democracy because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the systematic destruction of whatever wealth they managed to accumulate; instead they took up arms in two world wars to defend it. Japanese Americans did not reject liberal democracy because of internment or the racist humiliation of Asian exclusion; they risked life and limb to preserve it. Latinos did not abandon liberal democracy because of “Operation Wetback,” or Proposition 187, or because of a man who won a presidential election on the strength of his hostility toward Latino immigrants. Gay, lesbian, and trans Americans did not...

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...