Black entrepreneurs accuse state funding boards of discrimination

Reggie Carrick and Lamar Hobson are a couple of small business owners in the local area who have petitioned and protested against the Northwest and Southwest Workforce Boards.

Carrick is the owner of All-Star Academy, which is based in Memphis but has had a Jackson location or three years that trains students how to drive forklifts in the warehouse environment.

Hobson is the owner of Barber School-1, which is a school to train barbers based in Jackson.

Carrick and Hobson have petitioned the workforce boards and Workforce Innovations to be awarded more funding for their students than they’re currently being awarded.

They made a case for themselves when they and some of their students staged weekly protests at the American Job Center, which is under the umbrella of the state workforce development boards, in East Jackson.

“All these schools like Jackson State and TCAT are getting funding for training, and other places like Ben Ferguson’s place, they’re getting funding for training and placement, but we’re not,” Carrick said. “I don’t have these problems in Memphis. I get the funding I need easily in Memphis, but for some reason it’s a lot harder here in Jackson. Why is that?”

On Sept. 12, the Northwest and Southwest Boards had their annual meeting together at The Greater Jackson Chamber. Carrick, Hobson and some of their students were on hand for the meeting.

The purpose of the Boards is to identify and vote to allocate state and federal funding for workforce development in rural West Tennessee based on needs that would have the greatest impact on the local area.

During public comments at the beginning of the meeting, Hobson, one of his students and Carrick all spoke for nearly a total of 10 minutes with repeated accusations of racism against the organization and both boards as a whole.

“We’ve got two Black-owned businesses here asking for funds to help a generation of people get jobs and change their families’ lives, and why are we left out?” Hobson asked. “I look around the room. There are 75 people, and I counted about nine of us in here that are Black.”

Hobson’s student, who is white, said when he went into the American Job Center to get assistance in placement while the schools were protesting, he had a easier time of getting help than his Black classmates.

Carrick, called for the resignation of Jennifer Bane, the executive director of the workforce development, Ferguson, who’s chair of the southwest board and Decatur County Mayor Mike Creasy, who’s the chief local elected official on the Board, “because y’all are doing nothing for the community … just yourselves.”

Once public comments were over, Northwest Board Chair Jimmy Williamson called the meeting to order and Bane gave her report to both boards for the previous year. After her presentation was finished, Bane asked the board if anyone had any questions.

She didn’t specify that to the board, so Hobson said he had some questions and asked more questions about funding and why Barber School-1 wasn’t getting funding. After a couple of rounds of those questions, Williamson said Hobson was out of order, and Hobson and Carrick said Bane was the one who recognized Hobson.

Carrick and Hobson had already asked for more funding and to be placed on the Board with neither happening. They then appealed to the state and Commissioner Deneice Thomas of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

“You’ve appealed to the state and Commissioner Thomas, so the situation is out of our hands now,” Ferguson said

As tensions rose in the confrontation, Ferguson suggested there be another conversation among the leaders with Carrick and Hobson after the meeting once they’d completed their business. While tensions were still high, a call came from the building without the knowledge of most in the room to Jackson Police Department asking for their presence in case tensions continued to rise.

Carrick found out when he stepped out into The Chamber’s lobby to take a phone call and he said there were nine JPD officers out there.

Bane, Ferguson and other officials tried to have conversations and explain the data-driven rationale behind the amount of funding Carrick and Hobson’s schools are allowed each year – seven people for Carrick and two for Hobson.

“There are 42 positions open right now in Jackson – just Jackson – for forklift drivers, so how can you tell me your data and market research says I should just have funding for seven students?” Carrick asked.

When asked about it after the meeting, Ferguson said it’s not just numbers that are part of the equation but also the availabilities. He said there are other forklift training opportunities in Jackson with lower fees, but that’s on top of the fact that most places in Jackson and rural West Tennessee that have warehouses do their own in-house training for forklift drivers.

Carrick said he and Hobson will continue to fight for more funding for their schools because they deserve the funding and feel they’re victim of discrimination.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news