The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rousing Milwaukee rally that
gave vent Friday night to outrage over the abruptly new direction in which
Gov. Scott Walker is taking Wisconsin.
“Suddenly we have gone from Wallace to Walker,” Jackson told
some 550 cheering people – a full house – at the Metropolitan Missionary
Baptist Church, 1345 W. Burleigh St. As an aide to Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson helped challenge the segregationist policies of the defiant 1960s
Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Jackson said Wallace was denying black people the
right to vote and that now Walker was denying working people the right to
collectively bargain.
Jackson called for a mass march for jobs and voter registration
in Milwaukee, and an organizing meeting for such a march was set for 6 p.m.
Tuesday at the offices of the Milwaukee County Labor Council, 633 S. Hawley Rd.
Another speaker – Sheila Cochran, head of the Labor Council –
called Walker “the devil.”
The rally merged two anti-Walker movements. The first came
in response to his rejection of $810 million in federal funds to build a
high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison – a project that promised to
create thousands of jobs. That movement morphed into a general demand for jobs.
The second movement came in response to Walker’s effort to strip away almost
all collective-
bargaining rights from public employees. That movement has
featured continuous protests by tens of thousands at the Capitol in Madison and
a walkout by Senate Democrats to thwart a quorum and thereby delay action on
the bill.
By taking place in the heart of Milwaukee’s black community,
the rally highlights the depth of animosity toward Walker among African
Americans – a fact that may be visually lost in the mostly white Madison
protest. African Americans make up 6% of Wiscosnin’s residents and most live in
Milwaukee.
“There will be collective bargaining no matter what the
governor does,” Jackson thundered. “The
boycott in Montgomery was collective bargaining. The march in Birmingham … was
collective bargaining. The march to free South Africa was collective bargaining.
The march in Egypt, in Cairo, was collective bargaining. The march in Wisconsin
is what collective bargaining looks like.”
Cochran said, “Scott Walker is the devil and he needs
to be stopped.” She termed him “foolish” for turning down the $810 million.
If Walker was as concerned about the money as he claims to be in making
draconian budget cuts, he would have accepterd the federal funds and put black
people to work, she said. Unemployment is rampant in Milwaukee’s black
community
.
“He created a hole of some 140-odd million dollars,”
she said, referring to the tax cuts he pushed through the Legislature shortly
after he was sworn in. “And then he decided the best way to get it back was
off the backs of the people who work for the state.”
Among others paying for his tax cuts, Cochran said, were grant
recipients under Wisconsin Works, the jobs-oriented replacement for welfare.
Their grants are being cut.
“We can go up to the Capitol and we can scrub it down
with holy water,” she said.
James Hall, president of the Milwaukee NAACP branch termed
Walker’s efforts to strip away bargaining rights “a direct attack on
middle-class principles and values.” H
e called collective bargaining a “key
factor in allowing people the ability to move into the middle class.”
The crowd cheered State Rep. Fred Kessler like a battle-scarred
war hero. He told of the Democrats’ losing battle to stop the budget-repair
bill in the Assembly. “The battle is not over,” he said, adding that Walker was
cutting many valuable programs.
Congregations Allied for Hope) and the Milwaukee NAACP branch as well as the
Amalgamated Transit Union, Milwaukee Area Labor Council, Voces de la Frontera, League of Young Voters
and Wisconsin Citizen Action.
