Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who heads the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s 6th District of Georgia, is among the most vocal opponents of Georgia’s new Republican-led voting laws seen as an effort to suppress the Black vote.
The A.M.E. Church church has joined the boycott of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and other companies unless they do more to fight the new Georgia election law.
“We cannot and will not support the companies that do not support us in our struggle to cast our ballots and exercise our freedom,” Jackson said at an April 1 press conference, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Jackson, 66, has demanded that companies “commit and act” to combat the new Georgia law, which reduces early voting in urban areas and makes it a crime to give water to people standing in line to vote.
Jackson urged that people reject companies’ products if they do not help fight the new legislation in Georgia and other states.
Bishop Jackson has been calling for a boycott since at least March 25, when the bill, named SB 202, was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, Religion News reported.
A.M.E. Church is part of a lawsuit filed challenging the law.
Journalist Hayley Mason tweeted, “The A.M.E. Church has already voted to be part of the boycott…We expect every major Black denomination in this country to be a part of this boycott. It will be a national effort. I hope we get to millions. A.M.E. Bishop Jackson tells me orgs ready to boycott over voting law.”
In an April 7 interview with Mason, Jackson listed the organizations that are involved in the boycott.
“We got the National Action Network, spoke with Rev. Sharpton this morning. The Congress of National Black Churches, which represents the major African-American denominations all across the country. We will also have the National Urban League. There are a host of national organizations. We’re talking about sororities, like Delta. Eastern Star, the Masons. We’re talking about national organizations who will publicly come out in support of this boycott and urge their members not to buy from these stores.”
Jackson is set to meet with several companies on April 13.
She tweeted, “GA’s AME Church Bishop Reginald Jackson tells me he postponed a boycott of Home Depot, UPS, Southern Co., Aflac, Delta, & Coke until he meets with the execs on April 13. If the corps don’t oppose GA’s voting law, a national boycott will go forward possibly with millions on board.”
“We need them to speak out against any effort to suppress votes, any effort that is racist, and any effort to turn back time,” Jackson said in an interview with NPR.
“All of this is predicated on a lie that the election was stolen,” said Jackson, a former president of the Orange Public School System Board of Education in New Jersey and chairman of the board of Morris Brown College. “This is just an attempt to suppress the vote of Black and brown people and at the same time, it is blatantly racist. It takes people back to the time of Jim Crow.”
Major League Baseball withdrew the upcoming All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest of the new voting legislation.
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