Author: Reggie Jackson

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment to the United States Constitution A black sixth grade student was arrested in Florida after refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The police arrested him for disruption and resisting arrest. The 11 year-old student at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy – in Lakeland, east of Tampa – refused to stand...

On a cloudy and overcast day in 1994, I was driving down North Avenue and saw something that caught my attention. It was a museum with an unusual name, America’s Black Holocaust Museum. I had only been back in Milwaukee for a little over a year after leaving California, which had been my home for most of the previous nine years. I parked my car on Fourth Street and walked up to the door of the museum. I had no idea what to expect, and didn’t even know if it was open. An elderly man who introduced himself as...

Making a conscious decision to sit down and put shoe polish on your face is a form of bullying. To appear in public or in a picture in blackface and pretending you did not know it is offensive is a form of bullying. Acting as if the 1980s was a time where people did not understand that appearing in blackface was offensive to black people is a form of bullying. I am tired of these bullies never having to really apologize. It seems we cannot escape being exposed to the enduring usage of blackface by white people across the...

Despite the fact that on four separate occasions the person that a majority of Americans voted for lost the Presidential election, the United States stubbornly holds onto the Electoral College to select the President every four years. Most of us, including those who argue for the system, are unaware of the role racism played in the creation of the Electoral College system. We claim to have democratic elections but in the most important election in the country, maybe the most important in the world, it is possible for the winner to lose the election. In the minds of most,...

“Those who have no record of what their forbearers have accomplished lose inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” – Dr. Carter G. Woodson Have you ever wondered why we celebrate Black History Month? Why is it during the shortest month of the year? Why don’t we celebrate African American contributions year round? This annual celebration began because our schools and society refused to acknowledge that people of African heritage had ever contributed anything to America. The founder of the celebration, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, wanted to dispel that ugly myth and provide accurate information about...

“One can give freedom only by setting someone free. This, in the case of the Negro, the American republic has never become sufficiently mature to do. White Americans have contented themselves with gestures now described as tokenism… for as they like to say Progress.” – James Baldwin In August of this year, we will mark 400 years since the first African captives arrived in the English colonies. They arrived in shackles and were sold to the British colonists for food and water. The historical record of their arrival was distorted by John Rolfe who claimed that “20 and odd...