Black Public Historian Reggie Jackson

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Reggie Jackson - Milwaukee

Reggie Jackson

Reggie Jackson calls himself a “public historian.” In his lectures, radio and television appearances, he educates his audiences on Black history and how American policy and social structure has often failed African Americans. He comes across soft-spoken but certain like a favorite teacher.

You’ve become Milwaukee’s resident intellectual on civil rights and diversity. You’re a writer, speaker, and consultant. You appear in print, on radio and television. How did you end up in this position? Tell me about your history.  

I was born in 1965 in a segregated hospital in Charleston, Mississippi on the northern edge of the Mississippi Delta. In 1973 when I was eight, my family moved to Milwaukee for the good jobs. I was a very quiet kid but curious. My favorite books were the Curious George series and the encyclopedia. I’d go to people’s houses not to play with their children but to read their books. We lived on 18th and Meinecke and then we moved to 14th and Ring. the central city, almost all Black residents. I attended Parkman Middle School and then Milwaukee Tech on the South Side—took the city bus to get there every day. At Tech, I made white friends, but those friendships ended with the school day, and I went back to my Black neighborhood the north side. I graduated from Tech in 1983.

What did you do after high school?

I spent six years in the Navy as an electrician. After the Navy, I wanted to be a history teacher. In 1993, I moved back to Milwaukee and went to UWM, but I was also working as an electrician, doing 12 hour shifts and going to college full time. I burned myself out and quit college. I got involved with the Black Holocaust Museum and the director, Dr. James Cameron, who later became kind of a mentor and father figure to me.

In 2002, I became a griot, giving tours. In 2005, I joined the museum’s board of directors.  After Dr. Cameron died, I became the board president, but in 2008 we had to close the museum for lack of funds. I went back to college at Concordia University and got my degree in Business. In 2009, I was hired at MPS as a special education teacher, and I taught for eight years.

Meanwhile, you got into a private business, Jackson-Kaplan Consulting. Your firm does business as Nurturing Diversity Partners.

Yes, that was 2017. At Nurturing Diversity Partners, we focus on diversity, equity inclusion, consulting and training. We’ve done work with Milwaukee Public Schools, Shorewood Schools, Wauwatosa Schools and Greendale Schools, many faith-based organizations, also Milwaukee County and Wauwatosa city employees. We travel the state and have done work in 50 different communities and in 20 different states.

Our goal has been to go to the whiter areas and talk about race and racism. We’ve found that white people want to have these conversations and work on the issues. We talk about American history including the Black experience, slavery, Jim Crow segregation and the ugly parts of history seldom taught in schools. We do interactive workshops, work on empathy building, on what people can do as individuals to deal with prejudice and racism. We have 22 facilitators that work with us.  

In 2015, the Sherman Park police killing of Sylville Smith sparked days of unrest and destruction. That incident prompted you to begin your writing career.  

I had been doing public speaking, but I wrote my first article for the Milwaukee Independent. It was called, Evidence of Things Unknown, and the article went viral. After that I did interviews with local, national and international media. That gave me a platform to speak about the history of segregation in Milwaukee, mainly a lecture series I call the Hidden Impact of Segregation. I’ve given that talk probably 150 times. The redlining map in 1938 and racially restrictive covenants in the suburbs are part of what I share. Blacks were even kept out of some Milwaukee neighborhoods.

In 1930, Milwaukee had 7,500 Black citizens, 8,800 in 1940, 21,000 in 1950, 62,000 in 1960, and 105,000 in 1970. They came as part of the Black migration to the north for the good manufacturing jobs, A.O Smith, Allis Chalmers, Briggs & Stratton, and the beer companies. Right now, Milwaukee has about 40% Black population.  

When the manufacturing jobs left for Mexico and other parts of the world, that left many of Milwaukee’s segregated Blacks without work.

In 1970, Blacks in Milwaukee had one of the best standards of living of any city in America. Thirty years later, it was one of the worst for Black people to live. This is all part of my lecture series.   

Your knowledge of Black history is impressive. If you could simplify the plight of Black citizens through American history, how would you do that?  

The first Black Africans were brought to the British colonies in Jamestown in 1619. There were no slave laws until 1664 in Massachusetts, then later in all 13 colonies. By the late 1780s when the Constitution was written, there were about 700,000 Blacks enslaved in America. Over the course of the 246 years, about 10 million Blacks lived in enslavement. In 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but there were still four states who kept slavery. The 13th amendment in 1865 ended slavery except as punishment for a crime—as an example, for loitering. You and I could have been sitting here, and I could be arrested for loitering because I am Black.  

What was ordinary life like for Blacks throughout history?

The worst time was the 90 years between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Blacks were second class citizens and treated horribly especially in the South. Lynchings, vigilante justice, suppression of voting rights, dozens of anti-Black race riots.  

The military services were segregated all the way through World War II, I believe until 1948.

My ancestors served in segregated units. All this historic inequality made Blacks unable to make their way economically. They were left out of the good jobs and left out of a good education. Some wanted to become homeowners, but the federal government created redlining maps that said if you live in a certain neighborhood, you can’t get a home or business loan. Milwaukee and other cities had restrictive covenants stating that Blacks are not allowed to live in certain subdivisions and neighborhoods. We thought we had citizenship rights but in many cases we weren’t allowed to use those.

Jazz is America’s classical music and has been mostly created by Black musicians and composers, the addictive rhythms and improvisations combined with European chord structures. White people loved watching and listening to the great Black jazz players, but when the Black musicians traveled, they couldn’t even stay in most hotels.  

When Black musicians performed in Milwaukee, they had to stay in the homes of Black families. Hotels wouldn’t allow them.

Let’s talk about today’s world. In Milwaukee, most Blacks are still geographically segregated. You are quite opinionated when it comes to the current issues Blacks are dealing with. Can you explain your position?

The Black condition in the Milwaukee community is not good. What has caused this? The biggest factor is systemic racism. Fifty years ago, Blacks were doing well because of the family-supporting wage jobs. In 1970, over 50% of Black men worked the industrial jobs in Milwaukee. When the jobs went away, no political leaders or companies did anything to replace those high-quality jobs. People began losing their homes. In 1970, the poverty rate among Blacks was 22% below the national average for Blacks. Today, it’s 38% above. In the last 50 years, there was little investment in our community, and our elected officials and business leaders haven’t done much to help. 

Hard to believe this decline actually happened to thriving Milwaukee.

Tom, you’ve been on the streets. You’ve seen what happened to the central city infrastructure. You’ve talked about this issue in what you’ve written. You and I walked a part of the deteriorating 27th Street a while back. We saw the broken streets, the empty buildings, the criminal element. You talked about how these conditions would never be allowed in a white community. Any city that loses high quality jobs, then everything falls apart, the same as in Detroit, Baltimore and Milwaukee. 

Starting in the late 1980s, the central city’s economy kind of went underground.

Drugs entered the community. Gangs from Chicago came here. Everything got real bad. In 1991, we had the highest number of murders in our city’s history prior to last year. Black people have been struggling to have access to the American dream. If you walk out your front door and see poverty or crime, you don’t feel good. You lose faith in your leaders.

If you can get a job, are you gonna work for 10 bucks an hour at Popeyes or are you gonna deal drugs and make more money for your family who may not have a dad?

Many Blacks are still working but at low paying jobs: Walmart, Burger King, McDonalds. Some even have two jobs to make ends meet. Used to be the main breadwinner was the husband in a traditional family, but now a lot of women are heads of households. If you’re a man and you don’t have a good job, you might resort to criminal activity to take care of your family. The sad part is a lot of capable Black people have left the city and will never come back. They say there is too much trauma. They say the Milwaukee Public Schools are ineffective.

Let’s focus on the controversies with the police. The biggest issue regarding police controversy happens in the Black areas of Milwaukee. On one side, Police Chief Norman and the beat cops tell me they are trying to institute community-based policing, more interactions with residents, better listening skills. On the other side, Black inner city street leaders and residents are trying to get the word out as to what life is really like for Black citizens, the dangers. Those residents do not want the crimes and violence in their neighborhoods. They would like police protection, but the irony is they don’t trust the police and will rarely agree to be a witness in a crime incident. It’s kind of a paradox. You want police protection and you don’t. Currently, there has been a 38% increase from last year in overall crimes committed in Milwaukee. What are your thoughts?

The lack of trust in the police comes from a history of police behavior. How can you trust the police when you’ve seen how they don’t protect your community like they do in white communities. A Black person might say to a cop, “You want me to be a snitch about a crime I witnessed when you won’t snitch on your fellow cop who gets out of line?” All of us Black people want the same level of protection as in the white communities, but we know they don’t treat us the same. It is now well known that Blacks are pulled over at a much higher rate than whites. For years, young Black men have felt like they have a target on their backs. This type of policing aggravates the Black community. 

I think that’s changing. I’ve witnessed arrests where the cops are behaving fairly to suspects, asking questions, listening.  

I’ve seen that, too. Chief Norman is trying to build trust, not the ‘us against them’ style of policing.   

Chief Norman now tells his police force that even if suspects or onlookers are acting hateful, cops still have to stay calm and listen.  

What I learned as a teacher is you get respect by giving respect. If you’re a cop who gets cursed at, you shouldn’t take it personally. Policing is a tough job because you are dealing with people in stressful circumstances. Emotions run high and anger can erupt. 

A majority of whites have supported Black Lives Matter issues, posting yard signs, wearing T shirts, shouting slogans, even marching in protests. But currently, whites seem to have retreated into their walled-off communities. The noted Milwaukee Black journalist, James Causey, told me, “Black people are exhausted talking about what racism has done to our lives. It’s really up to white people to not want to be racist anymore.”  Do you agree with this?

I do agree with James. He and I have talked about this. Last year, I wrote a piece aimed at whites, “It’s great that you are woke, but will you get out of bed and do something?” A white person who supports Black Lives Matter has to be an active anti-racist. It can be a challenge because maybe some of your friends and neighbors don’t agree with you. Look, America’s always been divided, but the division we see now because the George Floyd incident brought many whites out of the woodwork who support racial justice. The division I see is white people who actively support racial justice issues and those who want to maintain the status quo. 

And there is so much misinformation delivered on social media, which only foments the racial divide.

Racism was created by white people, and they are the ones who should fix it in all walks of life: business, social, government and faith. People of color are still in the same camp. We just need whites to cross over into our camp.

If you are white, it could be as simple as getting to know one person of color. Joining a mixed ethnic organization, charity or church. Or going to the park and talking to someone foreign to you.

Absolutely. These are the things I teach when I talk to white communities. They might say, ‘Reggie, there are no Blacks in our community.’ I respond that you still can learn about the Black culture without living in that culture. Books and memoirs written by Black authors. Movies and TV shows about Black culture. The irony is that we are bombarded about white culture all the time. I say to whites that you can bombard yourself with information about Black culture. It’s hard to hate an entire race of people when you see a person of that race as a friend of yours.

What is your position on reparations for Black people? If you support that concept, how would it work in practice in Milwaukee?

I am absolutely in favor of reparations. The root word of reparations is repair, repairing damage that’s been done. To simplify, if you broke it, you need to fix it. For 246 years, America had enslaved millions of Black people, forced them to work for free and never compensated them after they were freed. A big part of reparations is financial restitution. For example, the Japanese interned in World War II camps were given $20,000 each in the 1980s. For Native Americans whose treaties were broken, they were given reparations eventually. 

It’s more like righting the wrongs done to Blacks over many generations. 

Yes. You whites have kept Black people in a lower position, and I believe you have to repair that. And it’s not just giving every Black citizen a check. America needs to invest in creating the same opportunities that whites take for granted. The G.I. bill, social security, Federal home loans, many Blacks were left out of these benefits. 

But how would reparations work for Blacks in Milwaukee?

As a Black person, if your ancestors were slaves, you are eligible for reparations. Even more, it’s about creating programs to invest in people of color on the local, state, and federal government levels. The paradox is that creating these types of programs would appear to be discriminating against white people under current laws.

An individual might be a member of an American Indian tribe that offers some scholarships or financial aid. But, by the same token, this is no different than an American citizen. Their nation offers the Pell Grant to those with financial need. Or, one might secure scholarships from various private entities. Shouldn’t that work for Blacks?

It could work. Free access to college. Access to secondary education from the building trades to liberal arts. Apprenticeship programs for Blacks in white-owned businesses that might be located in the suburbs or white cities. Reparations might also include investing money in fixing up the vacant buildings and houses in the central city. The City of Milwaukee owns thousands of foreclosed properties and they just sit there. Why doesn’t the city train and hire Black workers to repair these properties?  

What do you see in the future for overcoming racism? Are you hopeful? 

As a result of all the unrest last summer, I think America is in a much better place in race relations. More people are wanting change. But woke people are starting to realize how hard it is to change. It’s like turning around a battleship.

I’m a realist. When I see that our suburban schools are starting to teach true history about Blacks, that’s a good thing. I think people are willing to do more things they might have been scared to do a generation ago. I also like that people of color are making their voices heard. It took a long time to break Milwaukee, and it will take a long time to fix Milwaukee. We need more leadership at all levels, private and public, who don’t just use words but practice deeds. In other words, stop talking and start acting. I always compare Milwaukee to being a human. If the Black central city community is the city’s heart, the city will be unhealthy. A bad heart will impact other organs in the body. Let’s repair the heart, and everybody in Milwaukee will benefit. 

You once wrote, “How do we Americans of all color look at ourselves honestly?”

There is a mythology about America as this perfect place. We should not embrace that mythology. Too many people want to hold onto that mythology of the founding fathers that all men are created equal. Ask women, ask Blacks, ask Native Americans or Latinos if that is true. We all just need to admit to ourselves that we can do better as a country.

I want America to be like a mixed salad, ingredients separate but mixed together. We embrace diversity in our food, Italian, Greek, French, Chinese, soul food. Let’s embrace diversity when it comes to people.