[Rainbow PUSH Coalition]
Bishop Grant: “Rev. Jackson has given his full support to the Blake family and to the citizens of Kenosha to address these disparities in health, unemployment and education. We have to bridge these gaps now. This is more than police reform.”
Photo: YouTube
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Justin Blake, the uncle of Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer, and Rainbow PUSH Coalition field director Bishop Tavis Grant, Tuesday announced that PUSH intends to file a civil rights lawsuit against Kenosha to demand fairness in hiring and contract letting.
They, along with Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor, are upset that out of 153 firefighters, only 2 are Black and of the 216 policemen, 9 are African-American. Blacks in Kenosha receive less than 1 percent of the city’s contracts.
“That is unacceptable,” Rev. Jackson told a bevy of reporters during the daylong community service program held in Kenosha to honor Jacob Blake who remains hospitalized paralyzed from the waist down at a nearby hospital. Rev. Jackson is calling for equity and fairness.
Bishop Grant said the lawsuit “will deal with the inequities here in Kenosha County as well as Milwaukee County. Rev. Jackson has given his full support to the Blake family and to the citizens of Kenosha to address these disparities in health, unemployment and education. We have to bridge these gaps now. This is more than police reform It’s justice for everybody,” said Grant.
Thanking Rev. Jackson for his support, Blake said, “There is a systemic inequity running across every Black community in Chicago and every community around this nation. We’re trying to correct that as well.
“This isn’t just about little Jake. We’re working for the little Jake’s all across this county so their parents every time they walk out the door aren’t concern that saying a prayer that they might not make it back that some police officer might shoot them seven times in the back… This is about all the little Jakes that look like us,” said Blake.
