Council to consider support for declaring racism a public health crisis nationally

During tomorrow’s meeting of the Common Council (Tuesday, September 22), the Council will consider for immediate adoption file #200744 – a resolution expressing the City’s support for federal legislation declaring racism to be a public health crisis, the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act of 2020. The file is sponsored by Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs.

“The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County were early adopters of declaring racism a public health crisis, and now it is time for this to be acknowledged and affirmed at the federal level,” said Alderwoman Coggs. “This year communities of color have seen significant negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and continued instances of police brutality. To fully address these issues, and issues that will arise in the future, we must take a stand to declare racism a public health crisis that contributes to shorter life expectancy and worse health outcomes for minority citizens.”

The Anti-Racism in Public Health Act was introduced on September 3^rd by Rep. Ayanna Pressley. The act would create a National Center for Anti-Racism within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop anti-racist federal health policies, and would also create programs within the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention and Control focused on preventing violence by law enforcement.

Tomorrow’s Common Council meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and will be televised live on the City Channel (channel 25 on Spectrum Cable and channel 99 on AT&T U-Verse in the City of Milwaukee) and via streaming video on the city website at city.milwaukee.gov/Channel25.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.