Opinion

What I Learn When I Have Lunch at Cook County Jail

Published

7 years ago

October 17, 2019

On my birthday this year, I continued my tradition of going to the Cook County Jail to have lunch with some of the 5,552 people who are inmates there. These visits remind me of the humanity of those who are in trouble — and of the inhumanity, even idiocy, of our criminal justice system.

Despite the first steps toward prison reform, the United States still locks up a higher percentage of its population than any other country — even more than repressive nations like China. There are some 2.3 million people locked up in America in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correction facilities, 3,163 local jails, as well as what are called Indian Country Jails, immigration detention facilities and more.

If prisons were a city, it would be larger than Philadelphia or Dallas, and one of the country’s top 10 in population. In total, about $80 billion a year is spent on correction facilities, compared to the $68 billion spent by the Department of Education.

About 612,000 of this number are in local jails, but that number is misleading. A staggering 10.6 million people go to jail in any one year. Most are released shortly after posting bail or getting out without it. Over two-thirds of the people in jail have not been convicted of any crime. These are overwhelmingly poor people who cannot afford bail.

Prison and jail populations are still disproportionately people of color. African Americans are 12 percent of the country’s population but 33 percent of federal and state prisons’ population. Recently, from 2009 to 2016, the African-American prison population has fallen by about 17 percent, declining more rapidly than the white prison population, which is down about 10 percent. The scourge of the opioid epidemic has significantly contributed to the number of whites in trouble.

Nonviolent offenders make up a significant proportion of the incarcerated — particularly in federal prisons. State and local prisons and jails tend to have more inmates charged with property or violent crimes. Too many are there because of petty violations of the terms of their release from previous charges, not even from committing a new offense.

Inmates, almost by definition, are disproportionately low income. They are “down on their luck,” people struggling under the intense pressures of poverty. They tend to be people who suffer from the diseases of depression, alcoholism or drug abuse.

When I break bread with these people, I always find them to be more intelligent than people think, more humane than people think, more curious and open to experience than people think.

These are not serial murderers or rapists. They are overwhelmingly people who erred or did wrong but are not bad people.

We need a lot more reform of our judicial system and particularly of our system of incarceration. We should be doing far more rehabilitation and far less incarceration.

With 10 million people going to jail each year — and the overwhelming number in jail at any one time not convicted of anything — one thing we should do is register them to vote. The inmates I spoke with were stunned to learn that they were still eligible to vote — and eager to be signed up.

If they were to be registered and to vote, they might help make a difference in the judges that get elected, in the sentences that get handed out, in the injustices that are structured into our justice system. They know better than most that while there are some truly violent people that deserve incarceration, the vast majority need a hand up, not another shackle of more debt, a bad record, a bleaker future.

Illinois, under Governor Pritzker, has set the pace. Legislation was enacted that will turn the county jail into a temporary precinct that will enable “pretrial detainees” — those who are detained but not convicted of anything — to register and vote. That provides a model for states and localities across the country.

These are citizens who have the right to vote. We should make it possible for them to exercise that right.

By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Posts by By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Up Next

Opinion: Not Knowing This Trivia Could Cost You

Don't Miss

Opinion: To His Wealthy Donors, Trump is Their Grifter

By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

Published

1 week ago

June 20, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of June 10 – 16, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 10 – 16, 2026

Published

2 weeks ago

June 12, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 weeks ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.