Rick Banks Builds Black Power through Community Organizing

BY ERIN BLOODGOOD

As a child, Rick Banks always wondered why things were the way they were. At a young age he was pulling apart his VCR to figure out how it worked, but once he went to Riverside High School on the East Side, he wanted to understand why his neighborhood on the North Side looked very different with a lack of food options, businesses and poor housing conditions.

Having grown up in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, Banks says he saw economic disinvestment first-hand and attributes the lack of opportunities to a long history of racism. His inquiring mind led him to major in political science at UW-Milwaukee and since a young age, organize community to advocate for better policies and a better quality of life for Black people.

Where many people see barriers, Banks sees opportunity. “How do we begin to build an economic foundation for Black communities to start having economic opportunities, so we can fund the basic material necessities of our community,” he says, “so we can fix our housing, have parks, quality streets, and have businesses we can support?”

Banks has had his hands in many community projects including Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC)’s political organizing and the Harambee Green Neighborhood Initiative, but he really made his mark on Milwaukee when he co-founded MKE Black with Paul Wellington in 2019. They had a vision of creating a database of Black-owned businesses so people from their community could support each other and circulate dollars.

Building Bridges

What they didn’t expect was the amount of support and engagement they would find from people outside the Black community. They decided to run with the energy that grew with the mobile app they created to build bridges between these groups.

“The best path to unity and understanding is when we interact in-person and in community, says Banks with excitement in his eyes. “Food brings people together, so come to our community and experience our food so we can then start breaking down the walls.”

MKE Black has since grown to support the Black ecosystem in new creative ways like black-owned vendor markets, business social hours, networking events, access to capital workshops, and more.

Banks is using that momentum as a springboard to continue to build on the investments coming into Black communities. “Now we can have economic power, then we can really start to have some political power and start to change some policies that will further increase the quality of life in communities. That’s my theory of change,” he says.

In his new role as the Senior Program Manager of African American Affairs of the Milwaukee County Office of Equity, he has big plans to strengthen county policies and support governmental changes necessary to improve racial and economic equity.

The efforts to make this happen will take shape in many forms, but the most influential event happening this month is Black Lobby Day. The Office of Equity is supporting the efforts of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus to host a day in Madison for Black residents to voice their concerns to their legislators. More than anyone, Banks understands the importance of bringing people face-to-face with policy makers to influence political decisions that can have serious impacts on people’s lives.

It’s clear Banks won’t stop searching for solutions that will benefit his community and finding ways to connect Black business, residents, and organizations to build Black power.

Learn more about MKE Black at mkeblack.org and the Milwaukee County Office of Equity at county.milwaukee.gov/ EN/Office-of-Equity.

Erin Bloodgood is a Milwaukee photographer and storyteller. See more of her work on her website at www.bloodgoodfoto.com.

Antonia Drew Norton, Director of The Asha Project, gave me a startling statistic: “Women of color are dying from domestic violence at higher rates than other women. We’re also up to nearly 175 non-fatal shootings of Wisconsin women (in 2022). Ninety percent are Black women. Our purpose is to find out what was happening in the time leading up to the near-fatal event.”

Domestic violence affects millions of women of all classes. However, it’s been especially hard on Black women in Milwaukee. Physical and sexual abuse can go unreported because the people involved might prefer privacy over the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system, or the victim reunites with her perpetrator after punishment or counseling. “Black people often don’t trust the criminal justice system,” said Norton

What to do? Unlike the traditional approach of running a victim through the snarled system, the Asha Project designs culturally-specific support programs. Norton told me, “The reason domestic violence shows up more in communities of color is because there are other issues present. Poverty, health care disparities, and lack of mental health resources are all factors that contribute to violence.” At 69, she has been counseling victims for 35 years.