“We’re expecting anywhere between 5,000-10,000 people at this rally and march in Milwaukee. We’ve been getting a lot of support from all over the country and all over the world,” says Caliph Muab-El, founder of Breaking Barriers Mentoring, Inc. “We have an incredible line-up for that day and I can’t begin to tell you how many people are pouring in support. The Latino community is showing up in a major way, as well. We are expecting a huge crowd on Saturday.”
Muab-El’s All Of Us Or None Wisconsin, a project of Breaking Barriers Mentoring, Inc. is helping to organize “Justice for Jacob Blake – March & Rally” at Martin Luther King Park in Milwaukee on Saturday. Jacob Blake is a Black man who was shot by police in front of his children in Kenosha and has captured the attention of civil rights advocates around the world. Jacob Blake’s family is also helping to organize along with The Peoples Revolution.
“This is a new time. This era, this generation is definitely stepping up in a different way. The younger generation has a different mindset than their predecessors. I think that this time is better than any other time for justice and I know that justice time is coming,” Muab-El tells Madison365. “I see the veil is being taken off of the system that has been disguised as one that has been protecting our people. That veil has been lifted and we’re starting to see the atrocity and corruption and things of that nature that are taking center stage.”
(Photo by A. David Dahmer)
The event has plenty of powerful speakers and entertainers lined up including Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., president and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs, who is also the only child of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, and Professor Bennie Lee, a former Chicago gang leader and death row inmate who now mentors the formerly incarcerated and works to reduce recidivism rates.
There will be a special letter read at the event from Hip-Hop legend Kurtis Blow.
Greg Bennett, a community organizer and activist from Kenosha, will be one of the special guest speakers.
“We asking people not to join a movement, but to join a lifestyle,” Bennett tells Madison365. “The curtain has been pulled back like in the wizard of Oz and we can see everything that has been done to us over the past couple of years has been unjust and systematic.”
The march and rally are subtitled “From Kenosha to Wisconsin.”
“This march and rally for Jacob Blake should be a great event. We have Kenosha coming up to Milwaukee because Milwaukee came down to Kenosha and supported Justice for Jacob Blake Rally and Town Hall. Every event that we’ve been doing in Kenosha, they came … so we’re coming to Milwaukee,” Bennet says.
Jacob Blake’s family will also be hosting the event. Jacob Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake, says that Jacob is doing a little better every day.
“We just spent the afternoon with our brother, Jake, who had talked with him at the hospital the day before and he said that his personality is starting to rise up in between the meds,” Justin Blake tells Madison365. “He’s heavily medicated right now, but his personality is starting to shine and he’s able to move his upper body. He’s still paralyzed from the waist down.
“This will be the fourth event we’ve thrown as the Blake family to try and encourage healing of the community and to try and show them that we’re going to get justice without violence or destruction,” he adds.
Justin Blake says that he hopes the rally can help shine a light on policing in America and what needs to be done to improve it.
“There will be a police chief buddy of ours that we used to know from back in the day in Chicago who may be making an appearance [at the event] with his wife. As a chief of police, he has shared with us that reform is way overdue and that what he saw in the video was not policing whatsoever,” he says. “It was an individual acting on their own behalf while wearing a badge and breaking the law and being lawless.”
Justin Blake will make a special address at the event along with Jacob Blake Sr., Jacob Blake’s father., There will be a special tribute by Rebecca Burrel. The emcees of the event will be Jasmine Conway and Mariah Smith.
Muab-El and Bennett will both speak at the event along with State Rep. David Bowen, Destiny Monae of The Peoples Revolution, Jerome Dillard of EXPO, Khalil Coleman of The Peoples Revolution, Khamonzi of Zulu Nation, Tracy Cole, mother of Alvin Cole, LaTanya “Tanky” Fort – of AMNMMPA, Sean Wilson of ACLU, and Sedan Smith of Breaking Barriers Mentoring.
“The legendary Misty Blanco will be in the building. She’ll be here to perform along with her team of people. It’s going to be a robust event,” Muab-El says. “We are going to have a Live Justice Cipher, which is a bunch of celebrity local rappers to rap about justice in a circle. We’re going to have a little concert. We’re going to have voter registration tables out there and, of course, we’re going to feed the people.
“We’re looking to have a great day. We’re looking for the weather to be on our side,” he adds. “And we’re looking for justice.”
Justice for Jacob Blake Rally & March will be held Saturday, Sept. 12, 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King Park in Milwaukee, which is located at 1401 W. Vilet Ave.
“We have people coming from all around – Chicago, Minneapolis, Kenosha – because we want justice for Jacob Blake and we’re all coming together for a peaceful march and rally,” Bennett says. “We’ve been passing around petitions, we’ve been fellowshipping and uniting around the justice that we seek for Jacob Blake.
“I think that having someone that was intended to be killed by police but is still alive and still able to speak – albeit paralyzed from the waist down – is a different kind of circumstance because he can literally be here to see people advocate for him and he can start to, at some point, advocate for himself,” Bennett adds. “I think that’s a powerful, powerful message. I think what the officer intended to do didn’t work. And I think it’s going to be his worst nightmare.”
