WHITE WISCONSIN

Our community of La Crosse has been making a conscientious effort to offer regular public programming on Race. Our guest speaker this past month was Reggie Jackson, as you can see by his photo, not the 71 year old baseball player but one of his namesakes. 

The Reggie Jackson who came to La Crosse, a plumber by training, now calls himself a griot, an oral historian.  His passion for history has now changed his life's work to fighting racism and teaching others about the history of segregation. He has been touring the state doing research of its various black communities while also educating mainly white audiences on the history of Wisconsin's black population. Understanding history is crucial to the relationship of the different communities. This Mr. Jackson will also now be responsible for the new Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee built in the same location as its predecessor. Unfortunately, lack of funding closed the previous museum.

The original Black Holocaust Museum was started in 1984 by James Cameron who at the age of 74 after a church trip to the Holy Land and visiting Yad Vashem, the memorial commemorating those who perished at the hands of the Nazis, remarked to his wife the need to build a Black Holocaust Museum.  We met him once when we visited the museum and heard him retell his life experience of escaping the hangman's noose as a teenager in Indiana. He's the only known person to survive a lynching.

Ironically Dr. Cameron was born in La Crosse as his father was one of 3 barbers with 4 chairs in the river town. The river boats brought many tradesmen so there was no lack of clientele.

Mr. Jackson also imparted the infamous story of Joshua Glover, a slave, who was helped by locals escape from the La Crosse jail and find refuge in Canada. There were other stories of the small black community members who were trained as typesetters / were fishermen. Yet there has never been a large Black community in our area/ in most of the state for that matter.

Stories of the GI bill got my blood boiling as offered monies for education and housing for returning soldiers were squelched for Black Vets since higher education was segregated and housing developments had covenants banning Black residents. Impediments to Fair Housing included both government and industry support of segregation, a lack of low income housing, lending gap, suburban policies, mortgage lending discrimination, housing and employment discrimination ordinances and redlining.

There's no 'whitewashing' these Wisconsin's factoids of Inequalities for Blacks include:

-Wisconsin ranks 2nd of the most segregated states

-Highest incarceration rate for black men with 12.8%  of state's African American males behind bars, twice the national level
Blacks make up less than 6 % of state's population but account  for 42.7% of incarcerated 

-Worst state in country protecting the well being of African - American children , based on 12 key indicators 

-Widest national test score gap in every category between black and white children 

-Only state where life expectancy gap between black and white is increasing.( gap decreasing across rest of the nation 

-Only 4 states have a higher black poverty rate, 31%  (Maine 87%, Minnesota 38%, No Dakota 32%, Oklahoma 31%. ) Gaps for blacks and Latinos  compared to whites widest in nation.

-Most WI counties have very small percentages of blacks making up 5% or more in only 6 of the 72 counties

-WI residents helped Joshua Glover, a fugitive slave escape to Canada in 1854. A few years later the state constitution barred blacks from voting. 

-Labor unions banned black workers .

-Early success of blacks led to widespread discrimination in schools and business.

So now one asks, What can be done ?

Mr. Jackson suggests the following:

The important thing thing is to do something for as we all know change is slow especially when it comes to social injustice. History doe not need to repeat itself.