Michael Edwards

The Jesse Jackson tour visited Nottingham today, as part of the commemoration of the abolition of slave trades act and to promote the Equanomics UK campaign for greater economic equailty, especially for black and ethnic minorities.

The coach arrived outside the Council House and in the few minutes it took for Jesse's party to disembark, quite a number of local people lined up to meet and greet him. 

Inside Councillors and leaders of local partnerships met to hear him speak.  There were three particular messages I took from his speech -

1. that helping people who need help is not a zero sum game, cos more people paying in and not taking out increases our capacity to achieve more and get more done;

2. he described how greater equality in sports excellence was a social phenomena, because in the world of sport, the goals are clear and the rules are public;

3. communities could exhort parents to help their children develop more effectively, particularly regarding their education attainment, by adopting a set of rules which were simply spoken and easily remembered; it's possible the Council could pick up on a version of these as part of our community cohesion work.