Rev. Jessie Jackson – A London trade union reception.

I’m still playing catch up with last week. A highlight of which was attending a reception in the Washington Hotel in Mayfair for the American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, the Rev Jessie Jackson.

It was pretty informal but crowded with people eager to see Rev Jackson. Labour Party MP Keith Vaz chaired the reception with his usual eloquent good humour. UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis welcomed Rev. Jackson and spoke about the successful UNISON campaign “Show Racism the Red Card”.

The Rev. Jackson himself was very impressive with the traditional grand and formal US church style of oratory which us Brits tend to be very sniffy towards. Frankly, in person he knocks spots off the vast majority of our public speakers.

He was very, very supportive of the importance of joining trade unions and collective action to fight for fairness. He also reminded everyone while there may be far less direct and overt racism nowadays (thankfully) you still need to concentrate how many young black people go to college and become doctors, school teachers, professors or senior business executives.

I was with the newly re-elected London UNISON Convenor Gloria Hanson, Deputy Convenor, Conroy Lawrence and Publicity officer Lynn Bentley. There were also a number of other leading UNISON activists present.

Conroy (bottom left) works as an electrician for a NHS Hospital Trust. He is standing in next month’s UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) elections for the “sensible left”.